Sami Zayn aims for WWE championship at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia

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Sami Zayn will have another chance to win a WWE championship when he steps into the ring on Saturday against Cody Rhodes and Gunther at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia.

Rhodes booked the match between the top two wrestlers on “Friday Night SmackDown” after Zayn’s refereeing as a special guest referee came under fire. He quickly counted out for Rhodes after his feud with Gunther exploded in the ring. After Rhodes demanded that SmackDown GM Nick Aldis restart the match with a new referee, Gunther attacked Zayn. Then, Zayn returned the favor. The match was booked and Zayn has one of his biggest challenges yet.

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Sami Zayn enters the ring during a WWE live event at the Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid, Spain, on June 4, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)

However, Zayn was in high spirits when he spoke to Pak Gazette Digital ahead of the event.

“Good,” he said when asked how he felt. “Look, anytime you’re the main event of a big PLE, the fact that Saudi Arabia is always a little bit special to me just being from this part of the world, obviously. And the fact that you’re the main event of a WWE championship.

“I don’t think there’s a better place to be except being champion, which is the goal here. But other than being champion, it’s the best place you can ask for. I really can’t complain.”

Zayn was born in Canada after his parents arrived in the country from Syria. If he wins the title, he would be the first WWE world champion of Syrian descent.

He said winning the title in Riyadh would be a great moment for him.

“I think it’s one of those things that would be hard to process. I really don’t know. I don’t know how the fans would react,” he said. “I hope you enjoy it, but you never know because my character right now is a little polarizing; I really don’t know. But I don’t know. I think there are a lot of cultural and historical meanings that would maybe affect me after the fact.

Sami Zayn makes his entrance during SmackDown at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky on May 22, 2026. (Craig Melvin/WWE)

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“From a sentimental standpoint, sure, I think it would be amazing. I think it would be a great cultural moment, actually. I don’t think about it a lot at the moment because we come to Saudi Arabia a lot. There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that I’m Arab or Muslim or whatever. But when I was a kid, that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t like this was a common thing or something you could ever dream of. I couldn’t have dreamed that. This would happen. So, yeah, I think it would be a big deal.”

A possible Zayn win lines up perfectly with a Jey Uso King of the Ring win. Uso could choose to face Zayn, hypothetically, or world heavyweight champion Roman Reigns.

When speaking with Pak Gazette Digital about the possibility of him facing Uso for the title, Zayn seemed intrigued given the history he has with The Bloodline.

“I thought about it a little bit, but I really try to focus on one thing at a time. But I think because of the fact that The Bloodline meets ‘Raw’ with a slightly different slant now because Jacob adds a slightly different dimension but it raises the kind of question, the elephant in the room, which is, ‘Where is Sami Uso in all of that?’ Because we’re on separate shows, I don’t know if and when that situation, that question, manifests itself on our TV show,” he said.

“I think one way or another it would be interesting and it would be something really interesting. I think it would be very, very interesting actually. But we just have to see where the chips fall. But I think if a scenario like that were to happen, I think it would lead to some interesting week-to-week programming that we have to see how it plays out.”