Career
Rami Sebei made his pro wrestling debut with the Montreal-based professional wrestling promotion, ‘International Wrestling Syndicate (IWS),’ as "The Generic Luchador" El Generico on July 14, 2002 at ‘Scarred For Life.’
On June 15, 2004, during the 5th anniversary show ‘V’ of IWS, he won his first IWS World Heavyweight Championship title against PCO. He followed it up with a second title on February 16, 2008, at ‘Violent Valentine’ beating Kevin Steen (presently performing in Raw brand of WWE under ring name Kevin Owens).
As the members of the IWS began performing in the US in 2004, Sebei garnered attention from American independent professional wrestling promotion, ‘Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’ (PWG) and eventually became a PWG regular.
His feats with PWG include two PWG World Championships, and five PWG World Tag Team Championships (Human Tornado on August 6, 2005; Quicksilver on December 2, 2006; Kevin Steen on July 29, 2007, and March 21, 2008; and Paul London on May 9, 2010). He became the only man in the promotion’s history to hold both the World and World Tag Team titles at the same time, two times.
He is the sole performer to take part in the first eight Battle of Los Angeles (the BOLA) tournaments of PWG starting from 2005. He won the BOLA pinning Steen on August 20, 2011. He also won the Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament on May 9, 2010, with Paul London as the ‘¡Peligro Abejas!’. With this he became only person to win both the annual tournaments of PWG.
Meanwhile, he performed on and off for other wrestling promotions and garnered several accomplishments. These include wrestling for Chikara, winning the 2011 Rey de Voladores, wrestling for Ring of Honor (ROH), and winning the ROH World Tag Team Championship with Kevin Steen on September 19, 2008 and ROH World Television Championship on June 26, 2011.
Since 2005, he has on several occasions also appeared for the German professional wrestling promotion, ‘Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw).’ During his stint with wXw, he won 16 Carat Gold Tournament on March 4, 2012, and wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship on May 19, 2012.
He has also travelled to Japan and wrestled for the Japanese professional wrestling promotion, ‘Dragon Gate’ (DG). Starting from early 2011 till 2012 he made appearances for the Tokyo-based professional wrestling promotion, ‘DDT Pro-Wrestling.’ His first title win in Japan came with the ‘DDT Extreme Division Championship’ on September 19, 2011. Sebei’s other feats with the promotion include winning DDT's top title, the KO-D Openweight Championship, on September 30, 2012 and receiving the Best Foreigner Award in 2012.
In 2012, he wrestled for American professional wrestling promotion, ‘Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA),’ an international expansion of Dragon Gate, Japan.
Continue Reading Below
He made his last appearance in PWG on January 12, 2013, and signed with the WWE the same month. His debut with WWE happened with one of its developmental brands, ‘NXT,’ on February 13 2013, although he didn’t wrestle on that day. He first wrestled for ‘NXT’ on March 7, 2013, unmasked and using his real name, in a tag team match at a live event in Tampa, Florida. He later adopted the ring name ‘Sami Zayn.’
His televised debut with NXT happened on the May 22, 2013, episode of the brand. His WWE debut happened on September 6, 2013 at a house show in Montreal.
He received the ‘NXT Superstar of the Year’ award at the 2014 ‘Slammy Awards’ on December 8, 2013.
On December 11, 2014, he got into a title vs. career match for the NXT Championship where Sebei vowed to voluntarily quit NXT if he lost the match. The match, held at the NXT TakeOver: R Evolution live special in Winter Park, Florida, saw him defeating defending champion, Adrian Neville.
He was drafted into Raw at the tenth WWE draft held on July 19, 2016, and was later traded to ‘SmackDown’ on April 11, 2017, as part of the Superstar Shake-up.
Sebei for the first time in his career turned heel at the ‘Hell in a Cell’ event held on October 8, 2017. He helped Kevin Owens in defeating Shane McMahon in a ‘Falls Count Anywhere’ match that got him into a feud with the latter. Sebei justified his actions on the October 10 episode of ‘SmackDown Live’ saying that although ‘SmackDown’ is dubbed as the "Land of Opportunity”, McMahon has not given him opportunities.
In a turn of events, ‘SmackDown’ General Manager Daniel Bryan fired Sebei and Owens on the March 20, 2018 episode of the brand for attacking McMahon the week before. A tag team match was held at ‘WrestleMania 34’ on April 8, 2018, with Bryan and McMahon wrestling against Sebei and Owens, with the condition that Sebei and Owens be rehired to SmackDown if they win the match. The match was, however, won by Bryan and McMahon.
After remaining free agents for some time, Sebei and Owens were awarded Raw contracts by Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon on the April 16, 2018 episode of the brand.
Sebei’s character has featured in several videogames including in WWE 2K15, WWE 2K16 and WWE 2K17. The WWE entrance theme of Sebei was played every time the Edmonton-based professional ice hockey team, ‘Edmonton Oilers,’ became victorious on home ice during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
