Sami Zayn Undisputed WWE Title challenger at Survivor Series 2026: Who will step up to ‘The Last Real Good Guy’ after Crown Jewel?

WWE

Much like Crown Jewel, Survivor Series is an event where WWE’s world title storylines are often put on hold with the WarGames structure often stealing many of the company’s main event talent.

That may very well be the case for World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns, with Raw’s Bloodline vs. 946 feud likely to be settled inside the double cage structure, but over on SmackDown Sami Zayn should be free to put his Undisputed WWE Title on the line in Houston.

Here are three potential Undisputed WWE Title challengers for Sami Zayn at Survivor Series 2026:

Trick Williams

Following their intense nose-to-nose before Money in the Bank, Sami Zayn and Trick Williams once again met inside the ring for a promo segment on this past Friday’s SmackDown (October 16).

Zayn is clearly still haunted by his WrestleMania 42 loss to Williams, the “Gingerbread Man” insults and how the WWE audience turned their backs on him during that build to “The Grandest Stage of Them All”.

Zayn and Williams did a great job selling their disdain towards each other, and there is clearly still a lot of legs with this feud for the future. While most fans will have assumed that this feud would be coming later, rather than sooner due to Trick holding the United States Title, it certainly appears to be the direction WWE are going in at this point in time; making it the current frontrunner for a spot on the Survivor Series card.

Cody Rhodes

Cody Rhodes finally did the thing and delivered a punt kick on Friday’s SmackDown. Fortunately for Randy Orton. he was not at the receiving end of it, as Baron Corbin instead took the entirety of Rhodes’ boot to the side of his head.

With Rhodes now showing that he does have a killer instinct, it shouldn’t be long before we’re seeing “The American Nightmare” and “The Viper” bringing their feud to a close.

If that blow-off match comes at Crown Jewel, we could see whoever wins it emerge as the new number one contender for the Undisputed WWE Title at Survivor Series 2026, and right now, the favorite would have to be Cody Rhodes.

CM Punk & Kevin Owens

As personal of an issue as Sami Zayn has with Trick Williams and Cody Rhodes, there is nothing that quite matches his animosity towards CM Punk and former best friend Kevin Owens.

It appears as if Owens and Punk may be set to settle their differences away from the Undisputed WWE Title, but the eventual goal should be getting them both back involved in chasing Zayn’s title.

Given how often they’ve gotten involved in each other’s business, it’s quite hard to imagine one man getting a title shot without the other getting involved. A three-way at Survivor Series seems like the only way around this conundrum, and that match certainly wouldn’t look out of place on the card of a “big four” WWE PLE.

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• Sami Zayn
• survivor series
• Crown Jewel
• wwe

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