Sami Zayn confronted a fan who was allegedly yelling homophobic slurs at a WWE house show

It’s not news that Sami Zayn is a good dude. But we got another reminder from the SmackDown-branded WWE Live event in Daytona Beach, Florida yesterday (Sun. Dec. 8).

Shinsuke Nakamura faced Bray Wyatt in a steel cage match on the show, and a fan in the front row was berating Zayn. Not surprising, since Sami & Shinsuke play heels (and Wyatt kind of does, too, but that’s just a puzzling booking decision and not relevant to the matter at hand). But the berating included a homophobic slur and, heel or not, Sami wasn’t having it.

Here’s a first person account of the interaction from John Betz, another fan in attendance yesterday whose video (embedded below) helped the moment go viral:

“Sami[‘s] music hit, the jackass immediately starts chanting “Canadian F****t” (Sorry Twitter will ban me if I type it out). So jackass was with maybe his dad and grandpa? Two older guys I don’t know relation, as Sami walks by he yells it again and Sami gives him a ‘really?’, kinda like not cool and cut the shit.

But he kept saying homophobe stuff. That’s when I flipped from pics to video, the guy then started getting in Sami’s face knowing Sami wouldn’t hit him so he asked for security to handle it. It took a bunch of back and forth but finally the guy was removed.

His people that he came with stayed the whole show, grandpa even got yelled at by Bayley for touching her, not sure where as I wasn’t looking till she said “don’t ever touch me again” then I looked over.

There were kids sitting all around and to be acting like a full blown asshole was not cool, Sami did the right thing by giving the guy one quick moment to shut up, he chose not to. It’s not hard to not be racist, sexist or homophobic at a wrestling show. Sami did come by after the guy was booted and said ‘Hey this seat is empty now, what happened?’ and laughed.”

WARNING: The following tweets and videos contain offensive and inappropriate language.

We may not deserve Sami Zayn, but we’re lucky to have. Let him know you appreciate him by donating to his cause of choice - the SAMS-run mobile medical clinic for people displaced by the war in Syria.