Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens could truly fight forever

This dynamic duo from the north has certainly been good for hours and hours of wrestling content. If it isn’t their intense promos—especially on Kevin Owens’ part—or Sami Zayn’s outrageous antics and epic dance moves, then it’s the countless hours of in-ring action that has audiences crying for more. Really, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens can fight forever, literally, either against one another or even as a tag team taking on foes week after week.

So why are these two so perfect together? Why do they have such chemistry?

To answer that question, we need to go back through the annals of wrestling history, as the two have sculpted their chemistry in the squared circle dating back quite a few years.

Kevin Owens’ rise among the ranks

His wrestling career began back when he was 16 years old. That takes us back to the year 2000. His early trainers were Serge Jodoin, Pierre Carl Ouellet (also known as PCO and Jean-Pierre LaFitte in his WWE days), and of course Jacques Rougeau. Owens, then wrestling under his birth name, Kevin Steen, wrestled for Rougeau’s Quebec promotion for quite a number of years.

This led to him wrestling for a few other Canadian promotions, specifically IWS (International Wrestling Syndicate in Montreal East) and of course Ring of Honor and subsequently WWE.

Sami Zayn’s El Generico persona…the stuff of legend

Trained by the man known as The Wall and Sgt. A.W.O.L., Jerry Tuite, and of course the legendary Savio Vega, Zayn also hails from Quebec…Laval to be exact, and he had his start in IWS. He landed in many of the same territories as Owens did throughout his early career, but made a few more stops at other companies, branching out considerably. He wrestled as a masked wrestler, lucha style, and wrestled throughout this period under the name of El Generico.

Steen and Generico Collide and take over the territories

They met early in their careers, the two crossing paths at IWS, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and finally were united as a tag team in 2007 at Ring of Honor. They had many battles in that promotion, specifically a pretty memorable one against the Briscoes. The tag team was eventually broken up and they ended up feuding in quite a memorable fashion.

They were also adorned in gold many times, the tandem picking up many championships, both as a tag team and as singles wrestlers throughout their rise in the business.

They met again in WWE in 2014. Zayn had signed on with NXT in 2013 and although Steen was still at ROH at the time, he would sign with NXT the following year. The two were paired up again and again, and it has been back and forth like this for years, as we can plainly see, the chemistry they had is still present and flourishing.

Their training and who trained them speak volumes about where they both are today and what they can accomplish together. Jacques Rougeau of Quebecer and Mountie fame in WWE, trained Steen early on and that brawler style is evident in his arsenal, but Steen (Owens), who feuded and had a dispute with Rougeau,  claims that Terry Taylor was his principal trainer and Terry Taylor doesn’t really need an introduction to most true blue wrestling fans out there. Taylor works for the NXT brand behind the scenes as a trainer.

Zayn, who was partly trained by Savio Vega displays the techniques taught to him by the legend, whose most notable match came at In Your House: Beware of Dog (1996) in which he faced none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin in a Caribbean Strap match.

Capitalizing on their history

It’s like so many wrestlers of the past eras…that chemistry can lay the footwork for many feuds, and WWE is certainly capitalizing on that, as they are quite fond of doing.

Shortly after Owens lost his Last Man Standing match against Roman Reigns at Royal Rumble of this year, it seemed imminent that he would face Zayn once more, and for the zillionth time as viewers saw promos between the two, Zayn trying to ask Owens for support in his conspiracy theory that the WWE was against him. The tension led to their WrestleMania 37 match where Logan Paul was present, and they crossed paths for weeks in the race for the Intercontinental championship most recently.

All this culminating into the Last Man Standing match that the two had on SmackDown on the 2nd of July. The match was enough to call back memories for fans to not only their early days as wrestlers working the circuit, but to the duos that feuded over and over again from the Attitude Era, and perhaps the Golden Era of wrestling as well.

Comparing and contrasting with the legends that paved the way

If thought about enough, perhaps these two can even be compared to the late, legendary duo of The British Bulldog and Owen Hart. Whenever those two got in the ring, chemistry bubbled over the brim of the beaker, and of course, audiences were enthralled. When Owens and Zayn step into the squared circle, that same balance, timing, and finesse can be seen and felt.

It can’t be said that we, or rather any of the fans could ever get bored of watching the two get paired up. It just makes sense and we hope that WWE creative comes up with more and more opportunities for these two to paint their masterpieces on the 20 by 20 canvas for years to come, and hopefully for a major WWE championship to boot.