Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura at NXT Takeover Dallas has been called one of (if not the best) match of the year so far. Sami Zayn was on a recent episode of Chris Jericho’s podcast, Talk is Jericho. Zayn spoke about how the amazing match came about with Nakamura and where it ranks for him personally on his favorite matches of all time.
On how the match against Shinsuke Nakamura came about:
“It was a big match. To be honest with you, as far as how it came about, Hunter just told me, ‘hey, listen. We’ve got this big plan. We might do you and Nakamura.’ I said, ‘cool.’ What I didn’t realize at the time was, again, just because of the timing of it all, that I got called up right before in the build up for it, so, actually, it was going to be my last match [in NXT] for all intents and purposes. I might end up doing another match there, but it was the end of my run in NXT. So yeah, it was pretty much the end of my run in NXT and it was the start of his. And those NXT fans are real smart to these things, so they obviously were excited, with good reason, about Nakamura” (Source: Talk is Jericho, H/T WrestlingInc).
Where he ranks it in his all-time best matches:
“I actually think it’s one of my best matches maybe ever, like, top five or something. I thought it was really, really good. Just a million variables. I think it was really sophisticated in some ways with certain things that most fans won’t pick up on, but, you know, when it comes to protect the character or build a new character or make someone look good, some of the nuances that only workers or veteran guys or producers or whoever, people that know to look for things would spot. And then on top of that, the crowd was just molten, so it was our match to lose.” (Source: Talk is Jericho, H/T WrestlingInc).
Match of the year candidate so far from me! So many great elements to it! Really happy Sami killed it in that match and has been doing great so far on the WWE main roster. Can’t wait until those two meet again!