Will a Four-Time Intercontinental Champion Play a Role in the WWE Championship Match on June 19th?
On the June 19th edition of Friday Night SmackDown, ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes will be putting the WWE Championship on the line against ‘The Ring General’ Gunther, with four-time Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn being named the special guest referee. During the June 12th episode of SmackDown, both Rhodes and Zayn spoke about how they felt about one another, with both men slapping each other across the face. A few weeks prior, Gunther put ‘The American Nightmare’ in a sleeper hold as the four-time Intercontinental Champion just watched and eventually left the ring, with Zayn wanting to teach the WWE Champion a lesson. Now, with the WWE Championship on the line, will Zayn play a role in this matchup? Possibly screwing over his former friend?
This championship match will be a rematch from Clash in Italy, where Rhodes left victorious, even though the referee did not see Gunther’s foot underneath the bottom rope, which called for this rematch. After moving from Monday Night Raw to SmackDown, ‘The Ring General’ will look to keep the momentum he had throughout 2025, where he retired three WWE legends. With Zayn's distaste for Rhodes growing each week, it’s very well possible the one man who beat Gunther to end his 666 Intercontinental Championship reign will be the one man to help ‘The Ring General’ become WWE Champion. If WWE wants to continue to show Gunther as this dominant figure, his momentum must continue, and he must beat ‘The American Nightmare’ to become champion.
Rhodes’ last two WWE Championship reigns haven’t been as memorable as his first, when he defeated Roman Reigns at WrestleMania XL and held the title for well over a year. While ‘The American Nightmare’ has been QB1 for WWE, they still need to push their rising stars, and while Gunther is a well-established name, ‘The Ring General’ defeating Rhodes will surely be a big deal. With Gunther as WWE Champion, it would allow Rhodes to take some time off if need be, and it would place other young WWE superstars in the main event scene. Someone like Carmelo Hayes, Ilja Dragunov, or Royce Keys feuding with ‘The Ring General would only push their careers to the stratosphere. Even a veteran like Finn Bálor against Gunther would be a great feud to see.
The biggest wildcard heading into this WWE Championship match is Zayn. While he did say he’s calling the match down the middle, will he, though? His hate for Rhodes is growing more and more, which could cause the four-time Intercontinental Champion to switch sides and allow Gunther to win a World Championship for the third time in his career. This could lead to Zayn facing Rhodes as early as Night of Champions on June 27th.
Going into this match, the heavy favorite has to be Gunther. All the momentum he’s garnered over the past year and a half will instantly die off if he loses to Rhodes. I would expect Zayn to play it down the middle until the end of the match when he somehow costs ‘The American Nightmare’ his title. ‘The Ring General’ reign as WWE Champion would be a nice refresher before leading up to SummerSlam in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
