Add as a preferred source on Google Sami Zayn is in one of the most important stretches of his WWE career after winning the Undisputed WWE Championship at Night of Champions, which took place on June 27 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In the main event, Zayn defeated Cody Rhodes and Gunther in a Triple Threat Match, beginning his first world title reign in the company.
The win also led to a major wave of support backstage and from other important names in pro-wrestling. In a recent interview with ESPN New York, Zayn said the words “overdue” and “deserved” were the ones he saw most often in the messages he received after the win.
One of the messages that meant the most to the new champion, however, came from John Cena, who made a point to congratulate him on the accomplishment. Zayn revealed that he did not expect to hear from Cena, noting the weight of those words coming from someone with such a significant history in WWE.
“I guess one message that I got that I didn’t expect, it was extremely nice, it was from John Cena. He sent me a message and he just kind of reminded me of the difficulty of attaining this and that less than 1% of the people that aspire to do what we do ever gets to this point. That’s not lost on me, but to hear it coming from him, just saying congratulations. One of the things he said that also really touched me is like, this is a genuinely earned — I don’t want to throw out personal stuff that he said to me, but the thing that stuck to me is that he said you really did it your way. Man, I just thought that was so cool coming from him. He’s the man because he didn’t have to text me at all. It’s really one of the more touching texts that I got, to be honest with you. You know how he is, he’s a very thoughtful person and I think he was trying to remind me, in case I wasn’t already, to be very mindful of the unlikeliness and how difficult it is to reach the mountaintop. It was cool, it was a really cool message to get.”
Sami Zayn says that John Cena sent him a message after winning the WWE Championship.
— Fightful Wrestling (@Fightful) July 2, 2026
“I guess one message that I got that I didn’t expect, it was extremely nice, it was from John Cena. He sent me a message and he just kind of reminded me of the difficulty of attaining this and… pic.twitter.com/B6oq3jZdc8
Zayn’s reign is now entering a decisive stage. The champion will make his first televised appearance since the win on Friday Night SmackDown in Atlantic City, where Cody Rhodes is set to secure another title opportunity.
The rematch between Rhodes and Zayn is scheduled for the July 6 episode of Monday Night Raw in Chicago. In other words, WWE is not expected to wait long before putting the new champion in front of his first major test.