Why Triple H Compares Sami Zayn To WWE HOFer Shawn Michaels

Night one of WrestleMania 40 saw several title changes, including Sami Zayn winning the Intercontinental Championship from "The Ring General" Gunther. The legendary title reign of the Imperium leader lasted 666 days, making it the longest in the history of the Intercontinental Championship, a record that could stand for a very long time.

Speaking at the "WrestleMania XL Saturday Post-Show Press Conference," WWE CCO Paul "Triple H" Levesque likened Zayn to his former D-Generation X comrade and WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels. "The Game" stated that he sees in Zayn a similar ability to Michaels', drawing emotion from the viewer through his body language when selling damage inflicted on him. Levesque stated that WWE sells emotion, and if matches were only moves, spots, and sequences, it would be akin to a video game and wouldn't be meaningful.

"What you saw in Sami and Gunther tonight was two people that are geniuses at pulling emotion out of you and that's Sami's calling card," Triple H noted. "Yes, he does spectacular things but his ability as a performer, as an actor, as a whatever you want to call it, to pull that emotion out of people is awesome and it's why he's in the spot he's in — it's why he's as good as he is."

Zayn defeating Gunther was reminiscent of a "David vs. Goliath" match-up with the larger and stronger Gunther dominating most of the match. Once going by the moniker "The Underdog From The Underground," Zayn is a four-time Intercontinental Champion and has now won championships in back-to-back WrestleMania after he won the tag team titles last year.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit WWE with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.