WWE DENIED Sami Zayn's WWE Title Pitch At Royal Rumble 2026 (WWE News)
WWE denied Sami Zayn's backstage title pitch at Royal Rumble over in Saudi Arabia.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Sami Zayn made several pitches behind the scenes both before and on the day of last weekend's Royal Rumble PLE over in Saudi Arabia. Dave Meltzer wrote in his latest newsletter that Sami believed he should win the WWE Title from Drew McIntyre on the show due to his strong connection with the Saudi fanbase and success in the country previously.
Triple H and the creative team at large said no.
They wanted to stick with McIntyre. Realistically, despite his prior success in Saudi Arabia and the hype about how he'd never beaten Drew going into the event, Zayn was always going to be a speed bump challenger at best during WWE's road to WrestleMania 42. He'd hoped to change people's minds on that backstage.
Meltzer claims that there were talks about changing the finish to the title bout hours before doors opened, but Hunter and pals eventually settled on McIntyre retaining. It's unclear just how popular a Sami win would've been longer term, being brutally honest.
Yes, he's over as a babyface and works well as a sympathetic underdog character, but WWE's fanbase seemed genuinely thrilled for Drew when he seized the belt from Cody Rhodes during a dramatic '3 Stages Of Hell' encounter on the 9 January episode of SmackDown.
That was the culmination of a long, long, long road back towards the top prize for the Scotsman, so it would've been risky to upend his reign quickly by sticking the title on Zayn. Reportedly, WWE did at least consider it before sticking to their original plans.