There are a multitude of great professional wrestling matches that are technical masterpieces; matches so good, wrestling fans continually debate which one is the greatest of all time. Whether it’s Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage at WrestleMania III or Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker’s classic showdown at WrestleMania XXV, there’s no shortage of WWE matches to debate about which match truly is the greatest ever.
Sometimes you’ll get a great sports entertainment match that will, by definition, entertain the fans in attendance, but may not be viewed with the same level of veneration as some of the classic wrestling matches. Too much hate is given to one of these matches – Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn at WrestleMania 38 – and it’s time we’re all honest about how much fun this match was and how it was one of the best celebrity matches ever.
“I Accept, Schnookums!” – Johnny Knoxville, World’s Champion
A Brief History of Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn
The cast of jackass have a long working relationship with WWE and the two fan bases have a significant crossover appeal, with jackass being one of the most popular shows of the late-1990s during a massive resurgence for both WWE and WCW during the Monday Night Wars. Johnny Knoxville, the star of the show and the movies, became a central focal point during the promotion of 2022’s Jackass Forever, leading him to appear on WWE programming for a period of time.
Knoxville set his sights on Zayn through the 2022 Royal Rumble, and Zayn eliminated Knoxville from the match and set the track for their match at WrestleMania 38. Through a series of pranks and stunts, including Knoxville posting Zayn’s cell phone number all over social media – a call back to a schtick from MTV’s Viva La Bam where Bam Margera posted Knoxville’s personal cell phone number on the sign outside of Duffer’s Pub in Glen Mills, PA – Zayn became so enraged after dropping the Intercontinental Championship to Ricochet that he challenged Knoxville to an “Anything Goes” match at WrestleMania 38.
Johnny Knoxville Is Pro Wrestling
A Serious Entertainer and a Serious Wrestler
Johnny Knoxville has always had the goods and the skill to make his brand of performance fun, and jackass owes a major part of its success to his ability to make the most painful stunts look and sound benign. Wrestling fans want to be entertained as well as enjoy a good technical match, and the South Knoxville Strong Boy’s ability to live in both worlds translated perfectly into WWE, with this skillset allowing him and Zayn to put on the most sports entertainment match in WWE history without taking itself too seriously.
By allowing Knoxville to shine with his gifts, as well as this generation’s Hogan/Andre bodyslam moment by way of Wee Man and an appearance from Party Boy (Chris Pontius) that almost broke Pat McAfee and Michael Cole, the match was a comical masterpiece while providing several noteworthy wrestling moves from Knoxville and Zayn. The match was obviously not a technical showcase and was resoundingly trashed by wrestling critics and internet wrestling fans. However, it was entertaining, thrilling, and most importantly, fun, which is ultimately the goal of a great wrestling match.
The Impact on Sami Zayn’s Career
Knoxville Gave Way to the Bloodline
Sami Zayn, running out of gas in his conspiracy theorist gimmick by way of his Artist Collective stable with Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura, had little direction past his match with Johnny Knoxville. With his loss, which saw him be pinned by Knoxville after being caught in a giant mousetrap, Zayn seemed relegated to the fringe of the SmackDown roster, until he found himself in the crosshairs and good graces of the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.
What followed was one of the most unexpected layers of both Zayn’s career and The Bloodline story, as Zayn became both an integral member of the stable and arguably the most popular as the “Honorary Uce”. The inclusion of Zayn in the story paved the way for Jey Uso’s eventual break from the stable and his current main event status, as well as Zayn and Kevin Owens competing in the main event of Night 1 of WrestleMania 39, ending The Usos’ record-breaking tag team championship reign, something that would have been impossible without a storyline “embarrassing” loss to Knoxville the year before.
A Case For Its Place in Wrestling History
If You Hate This Match, You Must Hate Fun
It’s hard to dispute that the best celebrity match of all time is Bad Bunny and Damian Priest’s “San Juan Street Fight” at 2023’s Backlash, but in terms of crowd excitement and fun, Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn ranked at a very close number two on that list. Not only did the match provide the sports entertainment component that WWE strives to produce for the fan base, but it also got the best reaction from the crowd throughout Night 2’s entire card, including the show’s main event match between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns.
Hating on this match because it didn’t provide the kind of technical skill and ability some segments of wrestling fandom demand every night is akin to hating on Batman for not fighting Thanos: it’s asking for a result from something that’s never going to be offered in the first place. Sami Zayn has repeatedly referred to this match as one of the all-time favorite matches of his career, and the crowd response throughout the entire match was loud, boisterous, and engaged.
Zayn told The Five Star Podcast in late 2024 that this match shattered all expectations of what they were expected to do, and he’s proud of their work.
“I’ve had a lot of really great matches that I’m really proud of. The Knoxville one jumps out at me for so many reasons, I think. For starters, expectations were low. Any time you can take people on that kind of ride when they’re not really expecting to be taken on that kind of ride. To me that’s all wrestling really is.”
“It’s like a ride. An emotional ride, a ride of different reactions. It’s going left and it turns right and it’s up and it’s down and the next thing you know you’re just caught up in it. It’s a great feeling to be caught up in it.”
Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn was never going to be Steamboat/Savage or Michaels/Undertaker because it didn’t have to be, and it wasn’t meant to be. It was a fun romp of a match that saw a beloved millennial icon getting trounced in the ring until his thong-wearing friend came to save the day via interpretive dance, before Wee Man bodyslammed Zayn into wrestling history. If WWE could point to anything and say “this is the definition of sports entertainment,” this match would be it, and it’s long past time that wrestling fans stop trying to take it so seriously and just admit they enjoyed themselves and this match.
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