9 Wrestling Moves Sami Zayn Doesn’t Do Anymore

8. Rolling Arm Drag

From unnecessary complexity to beauty in simplicity. Sami Zayn has one of the finest arm-drags in the game, a Wrestling 101 manoeuvre imbued with grace and elegance, a move seen thousands of times but never really like this. The whole thing was often accentuated with a spinning go-behind, another way to confuse and perplex a bewildered opponent. Wrestling history is littered with great arm-drags, but few can match Zayn’s when it comes to style and poise.

Sadly, that first sentence should be altered to read in the past tense. Zayn hasn’t used his gorgeous rolling arm drag since February 2018, and it was becoming an increasingly rare beast even then. Zayn turned heel in late 2017 (so long already?) and the move was as good as put away from that very moment, last being seen in a match against great rival Kevin Owens on an episode of SmackDown.

The arm drag is one of the great pro wrestling babyface moves. Ricky Steamboat’s was arguably the most famous, and The Dragon was undoubtedly one of the sport’s all-time great good guys. When Zayn turned heel in 2017, this move no longer served its purpose, no matter how simple it is.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.