The story behind WWE Superstar Sami Zayn's punk entrance music

Sami Zayn at the O2 Arena in London, 2016
Sami Zayn at the O2 Arena in London, 2016

[WWE Superstar] Neville and I are big fans of ska. He’s actually more into original, Jamaican, skinhead, two-tone ska from England, but I’m more into punk ska – Operation Ivy and stuff Rancid would do. And while we were in developmental at the Performance Centre, we’d have promo class every week with Dusty [Rhodes, WWE Hall Of Famer].

Neville and I pitched this idea – and we played with it for months and months, encouraged by Dusty – where we dressed in two-tone suits to do these ska characters. I think someone eventually showed this to [WWE Executive Vice President] Triple H and I had this generic stock music. At this point, NXT was starting to become a pretty big deal, so it wasn’t just stock music being picked any more, WWE were investing time and making music for these guys. Triple H caught wind of this ska thing I was doing with Neville and said ‘Well, if this is more him than the music he’s got now, let’s do something in this vain’.

He sent me this song and I didn’t like it at first. The horns sounded kind of synthetic at first and I didn’t like that, then they fixed it and added the ‘Whoa-oh-oh’ at the beginning. That was the only input I had.”

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