Sami Zayn is eyeing the WWE Championship at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia

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

Rhodes booked a match between the two top contenders on “Friday Night SmackDown” after Zayn took over as the special guest referee and yelled fire. He quickly counted out Rhodes after his fight with Gunther erupted 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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However, Zayn was in high spirits when he spoke to Fox News Digital ahead of the event.

“Good,” he said when asked how he was feeling. “Look, whenever you do a PLE main event, the fact that Saudi Arabia is always special to me just because you’re from this part of the world, obviously. And the fact that it’s the main event of the WWE Championship.

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

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

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

“I think it’s one of those things that can be hard to process. I really don’t know. I don’t know what the fans are going to do,” he said. “I hope they enjoy it but you never know because my character is a little bit different right now – I don’t really know. But I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of important things like culture and history that might come to me after that.

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

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“From a sentimental point of view, for sure, I think it would be kind of amazing. I think it would be a big cultural moment, actually. I don’t think about it. I like to spend a lot of time at this time because we’re coming to Saudi a lot. A lot has been made of the fact that I’m Arab or I’m Muslim or whatever. But growing up, that wasn’t normal that it wasn’t like I was dreaming. I wouldn’t have dreamed that this would happen.

Zayn’s potential win goes hand in hand with Jey Uso’s King of the Ring win. Uso will have the choice of facing Zayn, presumably, or world heavyweight champion Roman Reigns.

While talking to Fox News Digital about the possibility of him competing with Uso for the title, Zayn looked happy considering the history he has with The Bloodline.

“I’ve thought about it a little bit but I’m really trying to focus on one thing at a time. But I think because of the fact that Bloodline is being repackaged on ‘Raw’ with a little bit of a different skew now because Jacob adds a little bit of a different element but he’s asking kind of the question, the elephant in the room, which is, ‘Where does Sami Uso lie in all of that?’ Because we are in different programs, I don’t know when and when that question comes up in our television program,” he said.

“I think in a way it would be interesting and that would be a really interesting thing. I think it would be very, very interesting actually. But we just have to see where the chips fall. But I think, if a situation like that comes up, I think it could lead to some interesting week-to-week program where you have to see how this plays out.”

Sami Zayn and WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes speak during SmackDown at the Unipol Arena in Bologna, Italy, on June 5, 2026. (Andrew Timms/WWE)

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Night of Champions will take place on Saturday at 1pm ET. The event can be seen on ESPN.