Sami Zayn made an appearance on WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves to discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, he talked about WWE rebranding NXT as NXT 2.0 as the brand is more storyline driven and based on characters instead of in-ring action.
“I happened to stumble upon a video or two, one of them was actually today, of myself in NXT very early. I was doing the same thing that these guys in NXT 2.0 we’re doing in the beginning, which is just trying to find yourself, especially for me, because I had come from a different background. I was a different character and all this stuff. So I was trying to find my voice, I was trying to find my facial expressions, all that stuff. I was trying to find myself.”
“I kind of don’t remember that part of NXT so much, because I tend to remember the later half once that character got a bit more developed. Then we were telling good stories, having good matches, and building NXT to becoming what people now know about NXT. But there was that first little year where I’m there and I’m still kind of finding my footing.”
“Now when I see these guys and girls in NXT 2.0, and I just saw this video today, so today’s when I made the connection of like, ‘Oh, this is exactly where these guys and girls are now.’ Sometimes there might be a tendency to watch something, and in NXT it’s different because you’re forgiving it because you know they’re developing themselves.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription