BALTIMORE — Wrestling is not just people throwing each other around, it's an art form.
A story told by athletes not with words, but with their bodies.
Take World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Sami Zayn, for instance, he just wrestled a grueling match with Drew McIntyre, a former World Heavyweight Champion, at WWE's latest Saturday Night Main Event, a live show that the company started back in 1985 and brought back just weeks ago.
Although he did not come out victorious, he said he left that match still feeling pretty happy.
"I guess just nostalgically, being somebody who grew up in that era of wrestling and remembering it from my childhood, to be a part of it, it's pretty cool, and to be a part of, actually, a lot of the fun stuff that's on the horizon for WWE right now is pretty cool," said Zayn.
Zayn has wrestled for years. He paid his dues in the indie scene and eventually earned his spot at WWE's developmental program, NXT.
From there, he would go on to win a championship at NXT and move up to the main roster, where he became a multi-time Intercontinental Championship and a Tag Team Champion.
Although he's no stranger to the wrestling business, Zayn says that wrestlers nowadays usually have to be on their toes because they never know what's going to happen.
"There's just always something in the works, so you kind of get being unsure. And being unsure or uncertain can be an unsettling feeling as well. You know what I mean? I think I got so used to it because I've been wrestling for so long, and I've also been with WWE for so long, that I just accepted that this is just life, you know, constant change, and you're never really sure. Like, I don't know what two months from now, I have no idea what it's going to look like. Sometimes, I don't know what my life is going to look like in a month, in three months, in six months, like there's, and I'm just used to that," Zayn said.
As Zayn said, change isn't new to him, but with change comes great ideas, and WWE has a lot of things upcoming to end 2024 and bring in 2025.
One of those is the holiday tour, a series of house shows in different cities that aren't televised.
Zayn says the goal of the shows is to hit multiple markets for fans to enjoy the experience of a WWE event.
He also says the event coming to these markets, including Baltimore, is even more special.
"It's a really, really big deal for WWE to come to your town now because we just don't do as many shows as we used to do. So the fact that we're coming to Baltimore now, I think it's a bigger deal than it would have been this time last year, when, like, oh yeah, they'll come now, and then they'll come back in four months, and then they'll be, like, another four months. We're just not running as many events as we used to, so it's a really big deal," said Zayn.
Following the tour, WWE will prepare to move its flagship show, Monday Night RAW, to Netflix.
The show was currently on USA and has stood on the network for a long time, now, with the move to Netflix, the wrestling company will be able to house future and past shows on the platform.
Zayn said while he's excited, he said there's a level of uncertainty that will come with the move.
"I guess a small part of me is just like, Oh, you don't, you just don't know what it means yet. And that sort of uncertainty, while it's very exciting, can also have a hint of, like, a bit of an unsettling, but I think in a weird way, it's kind of what keeps us on our toes as performers and, you know, keeps us going," Zayn said.
WWE's Holiday Tour will land in Baltimore on December 28 and its debut on Netflix will be on January 6.
If you would like to purchase tickets to the show in Baltimore, click here.
