The Dark Days

Remembering Sami and Kevin in 2018

It looks like Sami Zayn is going to be out of action for at least a little while, getting some stem cell treatment. Hard to say if we’re talking weeks or months. On Twitter I saw some people talking about it and wondering if Sami had ever taken time off before, with a variety of people asserting that he’d never done so in WWE.

Oh lucky souls that do not remember Sami’s two quite-long hiatuses due to shoulder injury! He was out for about six months in 2015 after injuring his shoulder wrestling John Cena (though he’d clearly been working hurt for a long time). In 2018 the situation was even more dire, although to be honest a lot of that direness was before he finally went out with his second major injury—which was actually just the same injury recurring. In a quote from the book (which looks on-target to come out this fall!) I go back over this awful time, and trust me, it pained me to write about it.

I’m actually being kind to Sami’s feud with Lashley and not mentioning the absolute nadir of it (Google “Lashley’s sisters” if you want the grim details). But you can get the feel for it from the promo where he goes after Lashley’s inspirational Instagram posts:

Meanwhile, Kevin spent a huge chunk of 2018 being turned inside-out by Braun Strowman. That he managed to do it differently every single time is a tribute to his inventiveness, but there was very, very little for him to work with at a character level.

The nadir of that feud was Kevin being thrown off a stage while trapped in a port-a-potty.

Both Sami’s feud with Lashley and Kevin’s feud with Strowman ended with under-six-minute squashes (at least Sami’s was because he could hardly wrestle anymore, though it’s possible Kevin’s knees were also a mess, since he went out for surgery in the summer of 2018 as well). Kevin’s backstage cred was still recovering from Vince McMahon’s reaction to his match with Chris Jericho at WrestleMania the previous year, and boy can you feel it in every since bump he took against Strowman.

I mention these things not to make you sad or to re-traumatize those of you who lived through 2018 (oh my God, 2018 was so grim. So. Grim.) but to revel in how far they’ve come since. Even with Sami out for rehab, there’s little doubt that as long as they’re with WWE, they’ll keep having interesting feuds that let them develop their characters in satisfying ways.

And you know what? Even while things were so awful, you’ll notice they still managed to build their character’s relationship into their respective stories, as Kevin slowly realized that Sami was broken inside. They find a way. They always find a way.