Zayn Reflects on 8-Week US Title Run as Dragunov Wins Open Challenge

Sami Zayn reflected this week on his eight-week run as WWE United States Champion, saying he regards the period as one of the highlights of his career after winning the title on the August 29 episode of SmackDown and relinquishing it on the October 17 broadcast. Zayn lost the belt to Ilja Dragunov, who returned to television to accept Zayn's open challenge and scored the upset victory.

Zayn built the reign around a weekly open challenge format, facing a different opponent each SmackDown. His first scheduled defense against John Cena on September 5 was ruled a no contest after both competitors were attacked by Brock Lesnar. Zayn then recorded four successive clean wins against Rey Fenix, Carmelo Hayes, JeVon Evans and Aleister Black. A later defense against Shinsuke Nakamura was declared a no contest following interference from Tama Tonga and members of Solo Sikoa's MFT faction, according to the broadcast. The run is widely counted as lasting 48 days.

On social media, Zayn described the stretch as "one of my favorite things I've done in WWE" and summarized it with the line, "8 weeks, 8 very different opponents, 8 bangers in a row." He added that in an era of abundant content,...