Brian Damage
This Week in Wrestling: Week 26 of 2026
Sami Zayn won the WWE Undisputed championship last Saturday at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia. Since that time, there has been a lot of talk amongst fans. Some were supportive of his victory, while others criticized WWE for putting the title on him. For those that were happy, it was mostly respect for a wrestler who has toiled for years on the independents under aliases such as Stevie McFly and El Generico. Someone who never fit the mold of what a WWE world champion should look like. Despite that, Zayn shocked many with his title victory and in doing so….capped off a long, hard road to the top of the mountain.
Then there are those who have completely crapped on Sami Zayn becoming a world champion. Some have complained calling Zayn…Sami Hogan meaning he is being pushed hard even when not over with fans. There are others complaining that Zayn looks like a homeless bum and doesn’t look the part of a top guy. I can see both points, but honestly, I am happy to see Sami hold the title even if it is for a very limited time as perhaps a transitional champion.
Nobody can argue that he hasn’t paid his dues and then some. It did tell a story and his promo right after his victory was excellent. Maybe he isn’t jacked like Superstar Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage or even the Ultimate Warrior were before him, but there is no question he can wrestle with the very best in the business. I don’t mind giving Zayn his flowers even for a limited amount of time. He has earned at least that much. Plus, it was a shocker, and shouldn’t professional wrestling have those moments especially in an age where information is everywhere?
Photo Gallery
This is a real billboard featuring Danhausen on Madison Square Garden
U Can’t See…his hair anymore!
Congrats to AJ Styles son Avery on his successful pro debut!
Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens reunited!
NXT’s Myles Borne looking jacked!
The new TNA Knockouts Champion Xia Brookside
Jenni Neidhart
Karissa ‘Elektra Lopez’ Rivera
Barbie Blank aka Kelly Kelly
AJ Lee
Thunder Rosa
Luchadora La Hiedra
Video Gallery
And now a message from ‘The Hitman’ Bret Hart circa 1993..
Luke
No problem with Sami winning it, but the belt doesn’t mean dick anymore. I’d rather talk about Jim Cornette calling Mason Rook a human waterbed on Twitter…
CHICC
My mistake, Zayn lost the US title during his Open Challenge to Dragunov then, afterwards when Carmelo won it off Dragunov, Zayn got the US title back leading to Trick’s victory and current push.
This further built up the backstage ‘frustration’ & led onto the Cody/Gunther angle that added more towards the ‘self denial fan reaction’ & ‘self entitled’ vibe when it probably was intending to come across as ‘the pay-off’ to those past months.
Sami completely deserved a better pay-off for his 1st WWE title ‘shock’ win; this build-up did more damage than was probably intended. Just wonder how further they will push this when it badly needs a ‘turn’ in the angle to try regain some fan support – Zayn deserves that.
CHICC
The build-up ‘angle’ was really the cause behind the damage of what should’ve been a celebratory moment in Zayn’s long career when he won the triple-threat in Riyadh.
Take a look back at the month upon month of ‘rinse/repeat’ angle of Sami not getting opportunity but then when he did he’d end up not winning when it mattered. This stemmed back to when Zayn did the US title Open challenge which culminated in Zayn dropping the belt to Carmello Hayes. We saw backstage promos of Sami ‘losing it’ whenever he said or did a wrong turn to someone – the ‘I’m a Good guy..’ angles that were meant to show Sami’s frustrations BUT the way those promos were presented (when he interacted either backstage or in-ring) it ALWAYS came across as self-entitled ‘me, me, me’ and that’s what triggered fans to turn on Zayn & boo him because there was too much repetitive venting it became a ‘cry wolf’ ‘no one cares’ skit.
The last few weeks Sami’s reactions to the fans ‘booing’ was the icing on the cake because it added fuel to the ‘self-entitled’ angle it was giving off. Hec, one entrance you can see a fan’s sign saying ‘Sami sucks’ being grabbed off the fan by Zayn & ripped up – reinforcing the denial towards the fan reactions & chastising the US fans in a promo upon his return after getting a positive fan reaction in the Europe tour.
Now if all this was ‘scripted’ then I genuinely feel amazed Zayn was happy with running this angle to his 1st major WWE title win when it 100% would’ve run better being played out AFTER Zayn had his 1st WWE title run because that later reaction against the booing would’ve played off better NOT before getting the title.
Personally, I feel the angle wasn’t expecting that fan reaction, it was hoping instead for the Daniel Bryan/Kofi fan reaction. Maybe this is why those Zayn promos against the fans went down? To try turn the fans back around who knows?
Either way it definitely didn’t play out the way Sami truly deserved in his 1st WWE title win, let’s just hope it now doesn’t rehash Christian’s ‘one more match’ when Zayn eventually loses the title!!
John Gianno
I’m assuming that photo of Owens and Sammi is like a meme or something, as there are red flags to that being an actual real image.
In the age of celebrity stalkers, I don’t see them blatantly flaunting their wealth out in the open like that, nor would anyone wear their belt in public in street clothes at a convenience store.
The body type doesn’t match Owens either, he always had decently define arms while still maintaining a gut, there’s no way he would have that relatively small of a lower torso without his arms being shredded.
If it is an intentional spoof on something, then yes, I am a fool and I apologize for this post.
John Gianno
If they’re going for the low hanging fruit of identity politics, I think it would have been a bigger payoff to do this in the province of Quebec.
He is not Saudi, he is merely of the same religion as the vast majority in that country. It was just too transparent that it was strictly for PR reasons.
If this was done in Quebec, you could easily play it off as a coincidence as they travel there often enough. Plus there is the long rich history of professional wrestling in that region.
This could have been a much, much more publicized version of when Jacques Rougeau pinned Hogan there.
Plus he could do an emotional promo in French.
If this was done in Syria, and there was a long history of professional wrestling in Syria, with WWE frequently touring there, then that too would have make sense.
Daniel Robert Mitchell
Sami was maybe the third person I ever built and ran a website for (pre WWE) and was always one of the coolest guys I ever got to work with.
PYGOD
You have a very good-looking website Mr. Mitchell.
Brian Damage
He seems like a cool dude.