A showdown is set to take place at Crown Jewel 2026 as World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns takes on the Undisputed WWE Champion Sami Zayn. Both men have quite a bit of history, as their past in The Bloodline marked some memorable moments in their careers. Even though the match is written on paper, one of these men might not have their title reign safe. While Reigns does have some competition on Monday Night Raw, it’s mainly against his family at the moment. On Friday Night SmackDown, however, the main focus is fully around Zayn’s title. Will the scheduled match actually take place, or will ‘The Last Real Good Guy’ lose the belt before making it to Saudi Arabia?
Zayn’s last few months on SmackDown have been tumultuous, to say the least. After losing the United States Championship to Trick Williams at WrestleMania 42, he would begin questioning whether the rest of the locker room even took him seriously as a competitor. After weeks of back-and-forth confrontations with Cody Rhodes, ‘The Last Real Good Guy’ would find himself inserted into an Undisputed WWE Championship match against ‘The American Nightmare’ and Gunther at Night of Champions. Despite being the underdog of the match, he would walk out that evening as the new WWE Champion. He would lose the title just nine days later to CM Punk on an episode of Raw, kickstarting Zayn’s delusional spiral in blaming everyone, including the general manager, for plotting against him every step of the way.
‘The Last Real Good Guy’ continued to make more enemies, from Randy Orton and Finn Bálor to a returning Kevin Owens. Zayn took offense to his long-time friend/foe returning at SummerSlam 2026, as he felt that Owens took away a world title opportunity from him. The two-time WWE Champion would return the favor by costing ‘KO’ his WWE Championship Match against Punk. During the episode of SmackDown in Mexico City, Zayn would take advantage of all the ringside distractions and pin Punk to become a two-time WWE Champion. ‘The Last Real Good Guy’ had proven all his doubters wrong once again, but at a high cost, as he now had a large portion of the locker room wanting to get revenge and take the title off of him.
While it seems as if some of Zayn’s challengers have decided to go after each other, such as Orton and Rhodes in a potential feud that could lead to ‘The American Nightmare’ heel turn, a new threat has emerged, as Pénta made his intentions known that no World Champion was safe. After a promo between Zayn and Reigns, the Mexican luchador made his way towards the ring and showed off his newly won Money in the Bank briefcase to both World Champions, teasing that he had no specific champion he would go after. Now with a locker room angry at him, a general manager whose buttons continue to be pressed by the World Champion, and a briefcase holder that can fall his shot at a world title whenever he wants, Zayn has found himself in an unwinnable situation, as every title defense could very well be his last.
Zayn is set to defend his title on the October 30th episode of SmackDown against Williams, and with the amount of interference that could happen throughout the match, the chances of ‘The Last Real Good Guy’ walking out with the title are slim. The two-time WWE Champion needs to keep his composure together and take every challenge step by step if he wants to remain champion. The match against the ‘OTC’ is the perfect opportunity to get revenge against the man who made his life hell throughout the road to WrestleMania 39. If Zayn wants to savor that possible revenge win, he needs to remain champion and fight off all challengers.
