Before Sami Zayn joined WWE, many fans know of his masked character: ‘El Generico’ that he used on the independent scene. Zayn was a guest on E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness where he spoke about letting go of the character.

Specifically, Zayn shared the heartbreak when he was told that he was not going to be using the masked character in WWE.

Here is what he said:

“So I didn’t know what direction they were gonna go in but I guess it all played out fine in the end. But there was actually — it was pretty heartbreaking the day they told me, ‘yeah we’re gonna move away from all that.’ It was way harder on me than I thought it was going to be. Because this might sound kinda pathetic but it kinda became my baby, it was my creation, you know? So kinda putting it to rest was way more emotional than I thought it would be.”

He continued, sharing the story of how he sobbed after saying goodbye in a promo:

“I don’t know if they’ll ever dig it up, but I did a promo back in FCW in Tampa when we had promo days once a week with Dusty Rhodes and I did this kinda promo where I put the character to rest and said goodbye and I got super emotional. And then I lived really close to the facility so I had actually biked to work — so I was biking home just sobbing. Anybody who was driving by just saw this 30-year-old man on a bicycle just crying.”

Seems to have worked pretty well for Sami so far but have to wonder if his career would have been different if he kept using the gimmick.

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