Sami Zayn on fan response at WWE Night of Champions: ‘Those are my people’

Sami Zayn has opened up about the hero’s welcome he received in Saudi Arabia at Night of Champions. 

Before the main event that night, Zayn spoke to the live crowd in Arabic to express pride in his Arabic heritage. It was his first time wrestling in Saudi Arabia since 2014 and his first time performing in the region since a pair of shows from Dubai in 2016.   

Zayn told Corey Graves on After the Bell recently that he had been waiting for a while to perform in front of his people.

Zayn said: 

I’m Arabic, I’m Muslim, all this stuff and that’s my part of the world. I understand those people, those are my people.

When I went there, I got to go to Mecca, which was just a surreal, surreal experience. And then I also saw my Uncles that I hadn’t seen in 25 years, I had cousins I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I met my Great Uncle I didn’t even know who existed. 

So, it was pretty heavy in a lot of ways, it had a lot of weight. And then the actual event itself and the reception from the audience, it’s kind of what I’ve been waiting for for a while in a way because, again, I always felt I would have been the natural representative for those shows and I just wasn’t. So, it was good to finally be put in that position. 

Zayn’s parents are from Syria but immigrated to Canada in the 1970s before he was born. Our own Dave Meltzer reported in 2019 that Zayn was not permitted to perform on WWE shows in the country due to his Syrian heritage but that changed earlier this year following Syria being welcomed back into the Arab League.