Match Spotlight: Kevin Owens Vs. Sami Zayn, WWE Elimination Chamber 2025

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the 2025 WWE Elimination Chamber premium live event, and looking back, this show is pretty important. Jade Cargill makes her long-awaited return to exact revenge on Naomi. John Cena’s victory in the Men’s Chamber match earned him a spot in the main event of WrestleMania 41, but he shocked the world and turned around for the first time in over 20 years, kicking off a match that had so much promise only to be completely erased from memory by the end of the summer. And of course, there’s this game.

advertise

The story of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn has been told by so many people that it’s hard to add anything new, but the story of this match is a dark one. By the end of 2024, Owens was completely broken, taking out his frustrations on anyone he felt had wronged him. He put Randy Orton on the rack with a piledriver suit, he forced Cody Rhodes to leave WWE Saturday Night Main Event on a stretcher after doing the same move, and when Zayn refused to help Owens become the undisputed WWE Champion at the Royal Rumble, he got a piledriver suit for his trouble and was removed from the match.

Owens has reached the point of no return mentally, and Zayn is truly the only one who can reason with him. The only problem is, Zayn doesn’t want to talk, he wants to fight, and WWE can’t accommodate his demands because Zayn can’t compete due to neck issues aggravated by a piledriver. However, that didn’t stop Zayn from getting his wish, and when Owens also wanted a fight, the only solution WWE management could come up with was to scrap the whole thing and book an unsanctioned Elimination Chamber match. Both men can take each other to the edge of the earth and WWE management can say “we have nothing to do with this.”

With the 2026 event quickly approaching, we’ve been taking a look at some of the biggest matches in Elimination Chamber history, as well as some moments related to the road to WrestleMania 42 that we have to focus on. As of this writing, this is the final chapter in the long and complicated saga between Owens and Zayn, and due to injuries, it may actually stay that way. Regardless of that fact, let’s go back 12 months and focus on the unsanctioned match between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at WWE Elimination Cage 2025.

Read More: Why John Cena’s WWE Retirement Is Such a Disappointment

Hate with a capital H

In hindsight, the game had an extra layer of emotion. I don’t know if Kevin Owens knew he would be out of action indefinitely in a few weeks, but given the look on his face when he came out, I don’t think it can be ruled out that he did. Even Zayn looked both angry and worried about what was about to happen, and what happened was an all-out war.

advertise

Since we now live in a world where companies like AEW produce unsanctioned matches that look less like matches and sometimes more like horror movies, it’ll be interesting to see how WWE makes this match feel different than the standard hardcore/street fight/no disqualification stipulation. The turnbuckles have been covered, the lights have been dimmed, and there are no company logos or stripes on the referee’s box, it does look different. But what sets this apart from other Plunder matches is how both men grapple with the hatred in their hearts.

It’s always great to see the heels get what’s coming to them, and fans in Toronto got to see Owens and Zayn up close as they brawled their way through the former Skydome. Zayn was conscious not to have too much control as he consistently sold his neck to great effect, even flexing his fingers on every collision, which looked especially scary when he fell off a pair of stacked tables pre-set outside.

Both men are known to make the most basic of weapons clashes look incredibly disgusting, and after going to town with a steel chair, Owens and Zayn took turns clashing on a chair to the disgust of fans. Fans were even more shocked when Owens sent the Fisherman Buster through the table from the top rope, so much so that even the commentators begged the players to stop. Things only escalated when Zayn, in some great visual storytelling, saw Owens place a barbed wire chair under the ring, and he came back into the ring with a “Really? Are you going to use this against me?” Zayn attacked Owens with the chair, then threw a Blue Thunderbomb on Owens for a near fall.

Finally, Zayn’s neck couldn’t take it anymore as Owens recovered and hit multiple powerbombs on the apron, much to the shock of all the officials who came out to try and stop the match. With two referees, a bunch of broken chairs and tables, and a bruised Zayn left in the ring, Owens mercifully counted out the three. There was a shocked silence from the crowd at the result, but it’s a testament to how good it was that it earned all five-star reviews.

advertise

The perfect send-off?

From a post-match perspective on this match, Randy Orton returned to WWE after being knocked out by Kevin Owens with a piledriver, eventually facing off at WrestleMania 41, but that never happened. Instead, two weeks before WrestleMania, Owens announced that he would have to retire from wrestling to undergo neck surgery, something he had been putting off for some time, and he hasn’t returned to the ring since.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it would be amazing to see Owens return to a WWE ring in the near future, and if neck surgery cuts his career short, it would be nice to see him do whatever he wants to do in the industry before hanging up his boots. That being said, I don’t think I’m the only one who says this match with Sami Zayn is the most fitting way for Owens to end his career.

advertise

Owens and Zayn have been basically linked together since the beginning of their careers. If you think of one, you automatically think of the other, it’s that simple. They’ve shared the ring hundreds of times since they first met on the Quebec independent circuit in 2003, and while they might disagree if you told them this, Owens and Zayn are arguably Canada’s two best exports and have no connection to the Hart family. To tell their story, their journey as friends, enemies, blood brothers, borderline life partners, to face off against each other in the biggest venue in their homeland and to be one of the best matches of that year, there’s nothing better than this.

The Rogers Center or SkyDome has hosted WrestleMania twice, but for Owens and Zayn, this match might feel like the main event of WrestleMania. Them throwing each other into barbed wire chairs in the same building where The Ultimate Warrior won the WWE Championship from Hulk Hogan, the same building where Hulkamania once again went wild against The Rock, is the kind of thing that puts a smile on your face because you know, back in 2003, they never dreamed their story would reach this level.

Sometimes you just have to know when to walk away and yes, I would really like to see Owens wrestle again, like so many others. But this match was the best final match of Owens’ career. The only thing that could possibly top it is if they faced each other at WrestleMania in Montreal, but unfortunately, I don’t see that happening. I don’t know if this is the last chapter of Kevin Owens’ career, but if it is, what a great ending it would be.

Don’t miss any of the major wrestling headlines. Sign up for our free newsletter and get the biggest stories delivered straight to your inbox. You can also add us as your preferred search source on Google.

Read the original article about Wrestling Inc.