Sami Zayn on brainbustaaah, his theme, Johnny Knoxville (Patreon)

Fightful spoke to WWE Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn spoke with Fightful ahead of his title match at WWE Clash at the Castle with Chad Gable.

Sean Ross Sapp spoke with Zayn, and discussed a number of topics. He said that he had FOMO from missing the last Clash at the Castle, and wanted to appear on this one. He's been very happy with the audiences at the PLE shows over the last couple of years, and says he's pushed to go to Santiago, Chile because their audience is one of the most real. He also wants to somehow wrestle in Antarctica.

Zayn also did a comedy show recently for the Netflix is a Joke festival, which Johnny Knoxville showed up at. He said that there were some time limitations in their match at WrestleMania, but that he's very proud of the match. He thinks that a lot of people forget the buildup, and that there were a lot of pitches that they wanted to make happen they didn't quite have time for. However, one of the things he had fun with was when Knoxville gave out his number. He said that the phone wouldn't stop ringing, and it actually made road trips much quicker because he just started to answer them when traveling. Sometimes he'd start them in character. A lot of fans didn't believe it was him. He told a story about Knoxville heckling him while drunk at WrestleMania 39 and said fans booed him for it.

Regarding the Brainbustaaaah coming back at WrestleMania 40, Zayn said that Triple H being a wrestler, there's more leeway with that type of thing. It was Zayn's idea and didn't get much pushback, and was easy to make happen. He said that he feels its a little safer than piledrivers, but said that's ultimately semantics. This year felt like the right time to do the move, after considering it a few times.

On his original theme coming back, Zayn said he had reservations about it at first, but it made since. The fans have a real affection towards it, and considering he had a rebirth, everything made sense.

He said one of the most exciting things in wrestling is telling a great story, which is what he feels like he's been able to do with the Chad Gable and Alpha Academy story.