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Sami Zayn is getting 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 two top wrestlers on “Friday Night SmackDown” after Zayn’s officiating as a special guest referee came under fire. He quick-counted for Rhodes after his fight 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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However, Zayn was in high spirits when he spoke to Fox News Digital before the event.
“Good,” he said when asked how he was feeling. “Look, anytime you are main-eventing a big PLE, the fact that Saudi Arabia is always a little special for me just being from this part of the world, obviously. And the fact that you’re main-eventing for a WWE championship.
“I don’t think there’s a better spot to be in, except being the champion, which is the goal here. But besides from being the champion, it’s the best spot you can kind of ask for. I really can’t complain.”
Zayn was born in Canada after his parents came to 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 big moment for him.
“I think it’s kinda one of those things that would kinda be hard to process. I truly don’t know. I don’t know how the fans would react,” he said. “I hope they would enjoy it but you never know because my character right now is a little polarizing – I truly don’t know. But I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of like cultural and historical kind of significance that would kinda maybe hit me after the fact.
“From a sentimental point of view, for sure, I think it would be kind of awesome. I think it would be a big cultural moment, actually. I don’t think about it. I kind of dismiss it a lot at this point because we come 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 was not the case. It was not like this was a common thing or something that you could ever even dream. I couldn’t have dreamt that this would happen. So, yeah, that would be a pretty big deal I think.”
A potential Zayn win lines up perfectly with a Jey Uso King of the Ring win. Uso would be able to choose to take on Zayn, hypothetically, or world heavyweight champion Roman Reigns.
When talking to Fox News Digital about the possibility of him going up against Uso for the title, Zayn looked 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 do think because of the fact that The Bloodline is reunited on ‘Raw’ with a slightly different skew now because Jacob adds a slightly different dimension but it begs the kind of question, the elephant in the room, which is, ‘Where does Sami Uso lie in all that?’ Because we’re on separate shows, I don’t know if and when that situation, that question, manifests itself on our television show,” he said.
“I think one way or another it’d be interesting and that would be a really interesting thing. I think it would be very, very interesting actually. But we just gotta see where the chips fall. But I do think, if a scenario like that comes to be, I think it would lead to some interesting week-to-week programming where you kinda gotta see how this unfolds.”
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Night of Champions will take place Saturday at 1 p.m. ET. The event can be seen on ESPN.
