Sami Zayn is one of the most entertaining superstar on the WWE roster right now, with his relationship with Roman Reigns and the Bloodline putting one some of the funniest moments in WWE history and providing one of the greatest stories in WWE history. His conflict with Jey Uso is the highlight over every show and he has truly earned the title of “Honorary Uso”.
However, before his days in the WWE he was known by a different name. Donning the famous red and black mask and speaking in a faux-Mexican accent, the Canadian star went by the name El Generico and was one of the top wrestlers on the independent scene.
He appeared under the mask a handful of times, very early on when he had just been signed to NXT. This was because he had yet to come up with his Sami Zayn gimmick, and would soon ditch the mask in one of the best moved in his career.
Sami Zayn has yet to portray El Generico in a WWE ring since. However, he nearly got the chance to play both Sami Zayn and El Generico at the same time, according to WWE Executive Road Dogg.
Speaking on the latest ‘Oh… You Didn’t Know?’ podcast, the six time tag team champion explained that his idea would have seen Zayn/Generico play out in a similar way to Elias/Ezekiel, with the Canadian star playing both characters simultaneously, to the bafflement of his fellow WWE Superstars. Elias did the same thing, trying to trick Kevin Owens into think he has in fact his own brother, a wrestler called Ezekial.
“I tried to, when I was writing for SmackDown, get him to wrestle on SmackDown and have El Generico wrestle on Monday Night Raw, and Vince wouldn’t go for it. We wanted to try to do that and have people go like, ‘That’s you dude’, and he’s like, ‘No, I don’t know what you’re talking about’. We thought it would be funny. It was Ezekiel before Ezekiel.”
Sami Zayn On If El Generico Will Return To Wrestling
He most recently appeared on the Cheap Heat podcast, hosted by Pete Rosenberg, speaking about his match against Knoxville at upcoming Wrestlemania 38. Zayn also spoke about his career before WWE, namely about his portrayal of the “El Generico” character on the independent scene in promotions such as PWG.
During the interview, Rosenberg questioned Zayn, asking whether or not El Generico could make an appearance in WWE in the future.
“I think people have a fondness for the past. It’s kind of normal that I get asked questions about past incarnations or past things in my career, ‘will we see this again?’ Some fans, and I take this as a positive because they have a lot of fondness towards my good guy days in NXT. And there is a kinship there and they felt a connection to that character. I’ll get messages saying, ‘When are we going to get that guy back?’ Well, that guy doesn’t exist anymore.”
“If the Beatles, if they were all alive, if they came back now, you can’t recapture what you had in the 60s. It would be the Beatles of today playing songs from the 60s… it’s lightning in a bottle. Everything is a product of time and place. Sometimes, you have to look at things that existed in that time and place and appreciate them for what they were and kind of wish that they wouldn’t come back because if they did come back, they wouldn’t be the same. Nothing is the same. It’s all a product of when and where it existed.” – SOURCE
You can listen to whole interview below.
