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WWE star Sami Zayn is set to take on Cody Rhodes and Gunther in a triple threat match for the WWE Undisputed Championship at Night of Champions on Saturday.
Since the calendar flipped to 2026, Zayn has elicited a different reaction from the crowd. The whiff of boos against him that started the year has grown louder. Zayn’s complaints about not being respected enough or not getting the opportunities he thinks he deserves have also reached a fever pitch.
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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)
There have been complaints about Zayn’s different character work over the past few months. But anyone who’s been in a position where they’re the veteran in an organization and watched the rest of their colleagues gravitate to the new shiny object or rock star of the group might empathize a little more with Zayn.
He told Pakinomist Digital in an interview that his character is now a bit of a “choose your own adventure”.
“Well, it’s kind of interesting because it can mean something different to different people. … There’s so much to say about this. I don’t even know where to start. It’s basically something where it’s up to you. It’s kind of a choose your own adventure,” he said. “I think if you’re a fan of mine and have been for a long time and you wanted to see me win the big one and this and that and you just stuck with me and you weren’t as fickle or in the mood as some fans who tend to tire a little quicker. If there’s a little bit more of an emotional connection there and you haven’t been on my side yet, maybe you’re still very alienated or you can still die. as I call them, but maybe they’re totally with me and for them, not much has changed, and for these other fans, maybe they’ve gotten tired of it.
“And you know, when I was working with Trick Williams and wrestling with Trick Williams, it became very apparent that here’s this new thing that’s very exciting, and it’s like, “We’ve seen this. We have seen you. And it’s like, you’re a comfortable pair of jeans, and we’ll get that, but we want this now.’ And then to take that and say, ‘Ah, noted,’ and play with it a little bit and turn it to your advantage, it’s going to mean something different to those fans. So that’s kind of the goal of this character right now. You can feel it one way or you can feel it another way. It’s kind of up to you. And the behavior will mean something different to one group of fans versus another.”
Zayn suggested he took some inspiration from how fans reacted to John Cena and Roman Reigns over the years.
He said Cena and Reigns didn’t necessarily change who they were. They just leaned into where the fans took them.
Sami Zayn makes his SmackDown debut at the Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence, RI on June 12, 2026. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE)
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“And the reason why I think this is a little bit different, and I don’t want to get into the whole psychology of it all or get into a big character breakdown, but when I imagine things about this, I look at guys who really divided the crowd in the past, like Cena for years, or Roman Reigns when he was like ‘The Big Dog,’ and he was definitely the No. 1 good guy, but all those kinds of people who were fans of him, and a lot of him were fans. I noticed their behavior didn’t really change whether they liked them or not,” he said. “They were just being themselves. And the idea of being like my behavior changes depending on whether you like me or don’t like me, which I think could be really interesting. And one of the things that excites me about it is that it really goes from flock to flock.
“So when I go to Saudi, I don’t know if I’m going to be treated the same way by Boston, and I don’t know if it’s going to be the same as when I go to New York. And I don’t know if it’s the same when I go to Montreal or Toronto or London or Paris. So that, to me, is very exciting.”
Zayn had been one of the top babyfaces for a few years and his popularity skyrocketed when he joined The Bloodline as “Honorary Uce” and later turned on Roman Reigns and Jey and Jimmy Uso.
He still heard cheers in the years after the moment at Elimination Chamber 2023. Pakinomist Digital asked Zayn if it was “refreshing” to feel some heat from the crowd.
“Yeah, that depends. I guess it depends on what your goals are,” he replied. “I don’t know, maybe I’m old school in this way, even though I’m playing with a new school idea here, but I’m kind of old school in that if I want to be cheered, I work towards being cheered. If I want to be cheered, I work to be cheered. But now I’m playing with this kind of more avant-garde thing where something new is happening here. Let’s see what happens there and maybe I’ll take those cheers, thank you very much, and maybe I’ll give some boo, if the situation calls for it.
Sami Zayn and Trick Williams react during the United States Championship match at WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on April 19, 2026. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
“So it’s a little different. For me, it really depends on what the goal is. If this was two or three years ago and I go and I try my best to get people on board with me for the story, the character, whatever, and they reject me outright, I don’t think that would feel great. It feels better when you’re the way we want to be, because I’m the way we need to be that way. To take them, it feels great.”
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Night of Champions takes place at 1 p.m. ET and can be seen on ESPN.
