Sami Zayn: ‘I love the art of being a good guy’

Sami Zayn enjoys the challenge of getting over with crowds as a babyface.

During an interview with Flamesnation to promote WWE Elimination Chamber, Zayn explained why he’s always preferred to be a good guy in wrestling. Zayn said he loves the art of being a babyface because — when people are unfamiliar with you — it’s much harder to get them to like you than dislike you.

“I’ve always preferred being a good guy. I actually really enjoyed being a bad guy too — I guess I just like wrestling, I don’t know [laughs]. But I think I love the art of being a good guy, because it is very challenging,” Zayn said. “Because if I told you, ‘Hey, walk into a room full of people and within 10 minutes I want everyone in that room to like you’ — now that’s a lot harder to do than if I tell you, ‘Hey, walk into a room and within 10 minutes I want everyone here to dislike you.’ Really easy to get disliked, you know what I mean? Really easy. You walk into a room, you go, ‘[grumbles] What is that you’re wearing? And you’re stupid.’ And you’re just loud and brash, within seconds people will dislike you. It’s easy to get people to dislike you. It’s much harder to go and win people over.

“And I just — I don’t know if you’re getting this from me here from this conversation, but I’m a sucker for the craft, and the challenge, and the art of it, and the difficulty of it. You know, like, it should be difficult, it is difficult, and you want to rise to that occasion and rise to that challenge.”

Zayn said it’s hard to explain what separates a good babyface from a bad one. It comes down to execution with subtle mannerisms or indefinable qualities, but it’s not something he really knows how to describe in words.

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a very hard thing to articulate,” he said. “It’s a feel thing, it’s a qualitative sort of thing. It’s not something you can really quantify or just put into words and go, ‘Well, it’s this.’ No, it’s just like an air, it’s a vibe — I don’t know, it’s just how you interact with it. It’s very, very hard to put into words.”

Pointing to it as one of the proudest nights of his career, Zayn said his Elimination Chamber 2023 match against Roman Reigns is an example of what he thinks is great about pro wrestling. There was genuine emotion from the Montreal crowd, and Zayn believes his story with Reigns benefitted both competitors while giving fans something great in the process.

Elimination Chamber 2025 is taking place at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this Saturday. A new chapter in the long-running story between Zayn and Kevin Owens will be written when they face off in an unsanctioned match.