Sami Zayn

[Jimmy Redman]

A search for variety should probably begin with the Steen feud in 2010, which was a blood feud filled with brawls and garbage matches.

[Quentin Skinner]

Lock for my list and will wind up very high. Top 5 babyface of all time for me. Probably would have made my list if he had just the Generico work to boast, but adding this NXT run has shot him up quite a bit.

[InYourCase]

^ Even better, you can seek out their rematch - with the roles reversed - and I think it plainly illustrates that Generico is simply so much better in a babyface capacity. Ricochet plays the more arrogant rising upstart routine, and Generico is the gatekeeper babyface looking to prove he's still the top dog - even if he's a half-step behind or a split-second slower. It's a fun freaking match.

 

And yeah. It goes into overdrive at the end and becomes the Generico workrate special or whatever, but it's a lot of fun and lets things breathe a bit. While it's not completely cohesive throughout - with Ricochet looking a little lost at times with too much stalling and gaga - you still get a great structure and story from the match.

That match is WEIRD. Actually, that entire show is weird. Steen and Cage went on third in a title match, then the Young Bucks and Super Smash Brothers followed with one of the craziest matches I've ever seen, and then there's Generico vs. Ricochet II as the main event. I haven't gone back and watched the show in about two years, but while I love both Generico and Ricochet, I came away from that match with no strong feelings. I'm honestly not sure if I liked it or not. I did, however, really enjoy the way the roles were reversed, as you mentioned. I need to go back and watch that soon.

[Clayton Jones]

It doesn't necessarily matter, but with a career babyface like Steamboat, you can point to lots of very different matches against a wide variety of opponents over a long period of time. I'm looking for some semblance of what variety means for Sami Zayn, which is why I was asking.

 

Three matches come to mind from his indy career aside from the brawling stuff already covered. And as for NXT, I think in the Neville and Owens feuds there's a good amount of variety, but that stuff is more accessible.

 

VS Hero - ROH Glory By Honor VI. This is much more of an early in the card, pure babyface VS heels kind of match. Not so much focused around popping the crowd as it is making them have a rooting interest. Great performances from Hero and the Sweet N Sour stable as well. I remember at the time feeling like this match was pretty refreshing as far as ROH goes.

 

w/Steen VS Quackenbush/Jigsaw - ROH Domination. Great fundamental tag wrestling in this one. Both teams are fairly fresh to the ROH crowd but they hook them big time. Once again everyone involved delivers here but the Steen/Generico tag team works mainly because of the sympathy that Generico brings.

 

VS Danielson - PWG Giant Sized Annual #4. Impromptu title defense after both guys have wrestled previously, Danielson against Necro and Generico in a tag title match. The set up adds a lot of drama coming in and both wrestlers build on that emotion tremendously throughout the match. Still a fairly big move style, but due to the fact both wrestlers are beat up coming in it's more focused and heated.

 

One thing that's consistent with just about any match I've seen in Generico/Zayn's career is that he works an uptempo style no matter if the structure is different, but that also is part of who his character is.

[Clayton Jones]

The 2007 ROH Race to the Top tournament was the Generico coming out party as an elite talent. In typical Zayn fashion, he made a miracle run to the end, before falling to the man who has turned out to be his top career foe, in a final that turned out to be an amazing foreshadow, Claudio Castagnoli. Cesaro/Castagnoli is the Tiger Mask to Zayn's Dynamite, the Flair to his Steamboat, the Tanahashi to his Okada. Some pairings just create special results, and i'm sure they'll have a few more classics when they meet on the main roster.

 

Also i wanted to add a counterpoint to this year old post in case anyone had used it as a starting off point for Generico's indy career. I dislike the work both Generico and Claudio did in that tournament. It felt like they were doing what they thought would best get over in front of ROH's audience instead of what they did best as workers. This can be said of much of Claudio's ROH run but that's another conversation. I think the match they had in the finals is more of a collection of spots and an overblown finishing run than anything else. On the topic of diversity, compare it to their PWG title match where Claudio mercilessly goes after Generico's leg for the majority of it and the big spots feel that much bigger because of how sound the psychology is.

[Jimmy Redman]

Sami is a no brainer.

 

As Generico he was a tremendous babyface, taking a goofy, surface-level character and making it one of the most enduring on the indies. He's a guy who has incredible charisma with a mask on, and is able to use body language and even his obscured facial expressions to emote better than most guys with uncovered faces. He could get over anywhere on the scene, work singles or tags, more traditional matches or insane modern spotfests, comedy stuff or blood feuds, all kinds of gimmick matches...the works.

 

And then he comes to WWE, takes the mask off, and it turns out he's been hiding a wonderfully expressive face under it for all these years. Working as Zayn gives him another facet too, that more human, down to earth element. He comes off as such a real, genuine guy. And he brings that into his matches where you're not rooting for the goofy guy in the mask, but rooting for that super swell guy. You just can't help but want him to win things. He's an insanely great babyface.

 

Matches with Owens, matches with Cesaro, Neville match, Steen feud, Steen team, the Chikara four-way, the rando PWG tags, just everything.

[El McKell]

Y'know I feel like there's the idea that Shinsuke Nakamura is the proto-typical wrestler who will fall in the overall list for 2026, but Sami (who finished higher than Shinsuke last time) also hasn't done much of anything worth talking about in the period from the last poll to now and probably won't do anything interesting going forward.

Do other people who voted for him last time think the past 6 years have negatively impacted his case? 

[NotJayTabb]

I think Zayn will finish lower in 2026, but I don't think it's his last few years negatively affecting him as much as the fact he was on a high when the last poll took place. At the time, he was coming off a great NXT run about to culminate in the highly anticipated Nakamura match, so his stock was at an all-time high. I actually think his main roster run has added to his case - we all knew he could play a great babyface, both with his body language in a mask and with his facial expressions without it. Now we also know he can play a great stooging heel, who knows exactly how to work to that character whilst still having great matches when he needs to. I think more highly of him now as an all-round performer than I did when I voted in 2016, but he wont have the buzz that he did at the time.

[Reel]

I think he'll fall because the sort of person who thought El Generico was a top 10 candidate in 2016 seems to be the sort of person who thinks that it is impossible to have good matches in WWE. 

[El McKell]

On 3/9/2022 at 2:30 PM, El McKell said:

and probably won't do anything interesting going forward.

A take that aged like a fine milk

[Grimmas]

The last few years of showing he could be an amazing heel and that, yes, he is still an elite babyface has really helped his case. The WM match was special, with Gunther stealing the show that night, so it was another big positive. Generico/Zayn probably has a pretty great case now, maybe easily onto the top 100.

[Microstatistics]

On 5/3/2024 at 10:32 AM, Grimmas said:

The last few years of showing he could be an amazing heel and that, yes, he is still an elite babyface has really helped his case. The WM match was special, with Gunther stealing the show that night, so it was another big positive. Generico/Zayn probably has a pretty great case now, maybe easily onto the top 100.

Completely agree. Didn't rank him in 2016 but he's in now.

[DMJ]

I'm thinking Sami Zayn climbs high and may even be the "highest climber" since 2016.

I've begun doing my statistical analysis - nothing special, just using scores from my database to find the average match score for various wrestlers - and while it is a very limited sample that does not capture the breadth of a career like Sami's (its probably over 90% just his NXT and WWE career), he has a pretty staggering average score of 3.29-out-of-5 with 43 matches reviewed. And that includes none of his TV matches, just his Takeover/PLE/PPV output. As a TV wrestler, I think he's consistently good-to-great too. I've heard people mention "random match theory" and I'm guessing he'd rate highly there too. I don't think I've ever seen him half-ass it. He's either going balls-to-the-wall or he's at least doing great character shtick to engage the audience. 

That score is higher than Shawn Michaels (3.2 in 66 matches reviewed), John Cena (3.13 in 94 matches reviewed), Randy Savage (2.8 in 59 matches reviewed), and Ric Flair (2.86 in 111 matches reviewed).

Now, that doesn't mean he automatically is going to rank higher on my list than those four because average match score is not my sole judging criteria (it doesn't speak at all to promos or historical importance or innovation or character work)...but, yeah, I think in 2016, if you had said that Sami Zayn is a better wrestler than Arn Anderson or Curt Hennig around these parts, you'd get laughed at or accused of being an "indie nerd" with recency bias. 

But, since 2016, its not like we've seen a treasure trove of new footage to show us sides of The Enforcer or Mr. Perfect that we'd never seen before. Long retired or dead, some guys are kinda stuck, unable to climb any higher. Their legacies are the same as they were in 2016. Sami Zayn, meanwhile, has only added to his resume and has basically become this generation's Mick Foley in that you can insert him practically anywhere on the card, heel or face or somewhere in between, mixing him up with your midcard or your main eventers, and he's scoring runs for you. Look at the list of matches and feuds he's had and find a stinker - the Braun Strowman stuff, the Artist Collective and feud with Daniel Bryan, the random feuds/matches with vets like Jeff Hardy and AJ and Bobby Lashley that were solid, the countless multi-mans he's been thrown in that he shined in (I'm talking ladder matches and Chambers and War Games), obviously the Bloodline stuff and the never-ending merry-go-round of stuff with Kevin Owens, the Johnny Knoxville feud, the GUNTHER story and then the Bron Breakker work. 

So if Sami was already in your top 100, I don't see how he doesn't leapfrog a few dozen spots this time around. 

If he wasn't in your top 100 and you're at all a fan of modern WWE, I don't see how he doesn't make your list now. 

[Tetsujin]

That's funny, because I love the guy and will probably vote for him, but since his great 2016, WWE kept him in limbo for like... Six years? It wasn't until his Bloodline stuff in late 2022-early 2023 that I felt he was finally adding something to his case again (except for the Knoxville match). And he's been on a great run since then, that's true, but I wouldn't say he was one of the most improved since last GWE overall.