Sami Zayn looks back at one of his greatest matches under the NXT umbrella.
Ten years ago today the top WWE superstar took on Cesaro (now AEW’s Claudio Castagnoli) in a two-out-of-three falls matchup to conclude their months long rivalry, which Cesaro won in an incredible final stretch. Zayn has since taken to social media to respond to someone sharing a video of the classic, and called it a match that changed the industry. He explains that this was the moment NXT became as popular as it did before showering the Swiss-Superman with praise.
At this risk of sounding dramatic or arrogant, this one match changed the industry. This was the day NXT became ‘a thing.’ Hard to explain the significance/context/landscape at that time, but suffice to say it’s one of my proudest matches, with one of my all-time best opponents.
Zayn and Cesaro have both gone on to become top players in the industry, but this slowly ushered in a new era of NXT in 2014. Over the next few years they would bring in Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode, Drew McIntyre, Adam Cole, and a number of other marquee names.
Check out Zayn’s post and a clip of the two-out-of-three falls classic below.