No one could have ever seen Sami Zayn's rise coming after he aligned himself with The Bloodline, but it quickly became one of the best WWE storylines in recent memory.
Cody Rhodes was a firm fan favourite to defeat Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania following his Royal Rumble win, but support for Zayn soon started to eclipse the American Nightmare.
Unfortunately, Zayn failed to dethrone the Head of the Table at Elimination Chamber in Montreal (despite having the support of his hometown crowd). WWE booked the storyline well, though, as Zayn gave Rhodes his blessing and ultimately beat The Usos for the Undisputed Tag Team Championships at the Show of Shows alongside Kevin Owens.
The company had clearly learned from a 2014 storyline which saw fans embrace Daniel Bryan and reject Batista, despite the fact he returned with the intention of winning the world title.
During a recent interview with Inside the Ropes, Zayn shared his take on how the two situations, while similar, are ultimately very different.
"[My story] happened to coincide with Cody coming back from injury and he did very well in his own right. He was red hot," Zayn recalled. "If you had rewound to the Daniel Bryan miracle run at WrestleMania 30 and Batista, that was different because the fans rejected Batista."
"But the fans love Cody, so I knew there wouldn't be a backlash like that. It was just a timing issue."
We can't help but think that had things gone slightly differently, it would have been Zayn facing Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania. Still, WWE is clearly determined not to beat the Big Dog, so we doubt he'd have been successful either.
You can check out the full interview with Zayn (who will step back into the ring with Reigns at Night of Champions) in the player below.