Long before he was one of the most popular stars in WWE, Sami Zayn was a kid from Canada who loved professional wrestling.
Like many young fans, he subscribed to wrestling magazines, and speaking in a recent interview with Love Wrestling, the Quebec native revealed how misunderstanding a word in an article led to his iconic finisher being named the Helluva Kick.
“If you want the actual history here, I don’t know if I have ever said this in an interview before but what it is, is when I was a kid I had WCW Magazine and I was reading some match results and it said Chris Jericho defeated Syxx, or maybe it was the other way around, with a hell of a kick but it was written ‘helluva’ like that and I thought it was a ‘helluvah kick’.
“So I thought it was a type of kick. So I told this story to Excalibur, who now does commentary on AEW every Wednesday. I told this story to him at dinner one time at Denny’s after a PWG show and then we started calling the Running Yakuza Kick in the corner that I would do at the time, we started calling it the Helluva Kick.”
@lovewrestlingca Sami Zayn on Helluva Kick Origins! #wwe#wwetiktok#wwettfam#samizayn#helluvakick#aew#aewdynamite#samiforsyria#lovewrestling#ilovewrestling#elgenerico
Sami Zayn And Kevin Owens Are The Current Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions
After finding common ground in their ongoing fight with The Bloodline, longtime friends Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens reunited to take on The Usos for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 39.
The two teams went to battle in the main event of night one, and in the end, The Usos’ record-breaking reign as tag team champions came to a close. The Usos faced off against Owens and Zayn once more on the April 28th episode of SmackDown, and Zayn and Owens were able to retain their championships.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit Love Wrestling and link back to this article with a h/t to Inside the Ropes.