10 Things We Learned From Sami Zayn On Stone Cold’s Broken Skull Sessions Podcast
6. His Pre-WWE Freak Out
...but not before freaking the f*ck out.
A young Sami was driving to his first company tryout in 2010/2011 and suffered a huge crisis of confidence. Check some of this inter dialogue out: "What are you doing? You don’t belong there? You’re tiny! The Undertaker will be there, and Randy Orton!”.
Panicking, Zayn pulled over at a Tim Hortons and tried to gee himself up. That's when Paul London came to mind; he'd worked in WWE and thought Sami was great on the indy circuit. Still, the frightened thoughts kept coming: “What’s Mark Henry gonna think? What’s Kane gonna think? What’s Jim Ross, who has seen everything ever, gonna think?”.
Sami was scared he'd be laughed out of the room next to some of the hulking physiques that WWE employed. That didn't quite happen, but he didn't make the cut either. Still, this was a lesson learned, and Zayn went into his next tryout a few years later with a stronger mindset.