Sami Zayn Reveals The Origins Of The Bloodline's 'Honorary Uce' Story

On Friday, as part of the hype for this Saturday night's Royal Rumble premium live event, BT Sport, WWE's British broadcasting partner, released a new interview with Sami Zayn on their YouTube channel that was conducted by Ariel Helwani. Coming off of Zayn's "trial" on Monday's "Raw XXX" special doing a gigantic rating, it was only natural that Helwani and the man he dubbed the most entertaining wrestler in the business quickly got into the topic everyone wanted to hear about: How the heck did his "Honorary Uce" storyline with The Bloodline get started in the first place?

It began about a year ago, coming out of an idea Zayn had when he was calling himself "The Locker Room Leader" at the same time that Roman Reigns had become established as "The Head of the Table."

"Coincidentally, it was an interview that Roman did with you that kind of spawned it all off," Zayn told Helwani. Because you had asked him if there was anyone he particularly wanted to work with, and he mentioned my name, which I took as a huge compliment. So one time we were talking, I was like 'Man, I had this idea. It would be so fun to do some onscreen stuff [together].' Some of it was his idea, too, like where it could go. But basically, it wasn't to be a full-fledged member of The Bloodline or anything like that."

At first, the idea was more that they would be linked as allies, with Zayn checking in with The Bloodline from time to time, mainly to give the Reigns character more range while also benefitting Zayn.

"That was sort of the inception," Zayn continued. "Where I thought it could go was eventually, you get close and whatever, and it could all lead to a turn, and what a way that would be to turn. So I kind of had this idea of how it would go, I just didn't think it would actually happen. In fact, even when the Bloodline stuff started, about two months in, I was like 'OK, I don't think this is going anywhere. I think maybe it's time to go in a different direction.'" That changed when he and Reigns started sharing screen time, which started with an episode of "SmackDown" in his hometown of Montreal when the other Bloodline members weren't present.

"Stars just kind of align, hey, we're finally on screen together! And there's some good chemistry and the crowd there obviously loves me, so that heightened everything, and that really gave it a whole new life," Zayn said.

Although he didn't necessarily see himself where he is now when this started, he did have confidence he'd get there if the story was told correctly. "It still exceeded my expectations, and I still didn't think it would actually happen, so a lot — a lot!—has gone on," Zayn said.

The Royal Rumble airs tonight (Saturday) at 8 p.m. EST on Peacock in the United States, WWE Network in most of the rest of the world, and other streaming services in countries where WWE Network's content has been licensed, such as BINGE in Australia.

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