Sami Zayn Weighs In On Both Sides Of WWE House Show Discourse

Sami Zayn offers perspectives for both sides of the conversation.

A conversation about WWE house shows was struck up during Sami Zayn’s appearance on HUGE POP!.

He spoke about how there’s a younger generation of wrestlers who could benefit from the reps, but added that there’s the older generation who have put 20 years into the wrestling business, and consistent house shows would be harder on their bodies.

“Well, even this, like anything else, there’s polarizing views on all of it, right? So, however, I can say no matter what you think or I think or whatever, it’s pretty clear that the best way to get good at anything is to do it over and over again. So I think when you’re starting to look at stars of the future, you’re looking at Trick (Williams), you’re looking at Je’Von (Evans), Bron Breakker, Oba Femi, and guys like this. A lot of these guys just simply don’t have a lot of reps under their belt and they’re doing phenomenal, all things considered. So I just think that there’s no disputing the idea that if they get a few more reps, especially live events where, really, that’s like the true performance. That’s really what this business is. It’s you in a ring, a live house, not worried about the constraints of television time and hitting break spots and commercials and you know, it’s really just the art form at its kind of most naked and truthful form. So, I think it’s invaluable experience for those guys. I think it’s a good thing to see some returning for sure. I’m not gonna get into the business side of it as far as, you know, is it worth it from a profitability standpoint? I don’t know. There’s people that make — we have a team for that,” Zayn laughed. “But strictly from an artistic performance side… I’ve been doing this my whole life almost now. 20-something years. I enjoy them, but I’ll also say that there’s two separate generations going at the same time here. You have guys like Roman (Reigns) or Seth (Rollins) or myself or (CM) Punk or Drew McIntyre or Kevin Owens or Finn Bálor, all these guys that are mainstays who are on the later side of our careers and have already put in 20 years. So, doing a bunch of live events is a little harder on our bodies. So, I kind of see the merit in, well, these are a lot of your top stars and you wanna not run them into the into the road while you have ‘em. But I also see the merit in, well, these guys, the JeVons and the Bron Breakkers and the Obas, they need to get there too so I do think there’s definitely this fine line of the volume of live events. Because I don’t know if you wanna keep a lot of the guys that are current television stars or in their later years, you wanna keep them healthy for the next three, four, five years. The way it was before with like 160 live events might be a little much… Understanding the different town-to-town responses and just getting a feel for the audience, I think that’s crucial for these guys, so I do think having some of these live events around are a great thing. But the volume, I think there’s like a middle ground.”

WWE’s next house show is on July 11th. They will be at the Pan American Center in New Mexico.

Drew McIntyre weighed in on the WWE house show conversation, and his comments can be read here.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit HUGE POP! with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.