Sami Zayn doesn’t believe he has fully crossed over to the dark side just yet.
The WWE star spoke with the Toronto Sun about the evolving direction of his on-screen character, explaining that while fans may be viewing his recent behavior as a heel turn, he sees things playing out in a much more layered way.
“I’ll disagree with your statement that I’ve fully turned heel here,” Zayn said. “I don’t think I have. I think I’m trying to play this one a little different because this one is kind of different. We’re kind of riding these reactions which are kind of different week to week.”
According to Zayn, the current storyline has intentionally been designed to blur the lines between traditional babyface and heel roles, with crowd reactions shifting depending on the situation.
“I had this idea for a slight character shift that would be a little outside the box, that would split the audience a little bit, but sometimes things just don’t work out exactly how you envision it. Sometimes you think you’re going to be somewhere on the timeline and you’re not.”
Still, Zayn admitted there are moments where fan backlash is unavoidable.
Especially when gingerbread men are involved.
“I still think there’s a ways to go and it could still go in a number of different ways, which I find very interesting and refreshing. Although to be fair, if you kick a mannequin gingerbread man below the belt, I know that might upset some people because people want to have fun.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Zayn also brought up fellow WWE star Trick Williams while discussing modern crowd reactions and how today’s audience doesn’t always fit neatly into the classic heel/babyface formula.
“I don’t think Trick Williams is a full-blown (babyface), even though he’s getting really great reactions, I don’t know if I would call him a full-blown good guy or babyface or whatever. But certainly he’s getting these huge cheers and what’s gotten him cheered is maybe not the same thing that’s gotten me cheered in the past.”
Zayn went on to reference his recent “ride or die” comments from SmackDown, noting that he enjoys leaning into the polarizing nature of the character and giving fans room to choose how they feel about him.
“I think this kind of polarizing thing and talking about my fans, like the ride or die fans that haven’t turned their back on me or whatever, that kind of stuff, I just think there’s something fun there. And I like giving fans a choice. You can be on either side of the fence a little bit, but again, we’ll kind of see because everything is organically unfolding. We’ll see where things land.”
“But I don’t think I’ve fully committed or fully embraced the dark side as you would maybe put it.”
Sami Zayn vs. Trick Williams, with Lil Yachty, takes place for the WWE United States Championship in the free first hour of WWE Backlash, which airs live on ESPN 2.
