[SPOILER] said to be returning on WWE SmackDown

In his preview for tonight’s SmackDown, my guy Cain Knight wondered if we’d be getting a Sami Zayn United States championship match on the Oct. 17 episode. Zayn’s defended his red, white, and blue belt on seven consecutive episodes heading into this week’s.

Among other things, Bodyslam.net’s paywalled spoiler report for tonight’s show from San Jose, California does list a U.S. title match for Zayn. If they’re right about who answers Sami’s latest challenge, it will be the first time seen this former NXT titleholder in more than a year.

The headline warned ya about a possible SPOILER, but we’ll give you one last chance.

Okay… according to Bodyslam, Ilja Dragunov will wrestle the U.S. champ on SmackDown. Dragunov has been out since Sept. 2024 with a knee injury he suffered wrestling his long-time rival Gunther on a house show. Around SummerSlam there was talk he was cleared and awaiting creative. Now, on a show with other injury concerns hovering over it, we’ve got word the 32-year-old Russian will be back.

Dargunov/Zayn have only wrestled once, last year on Raw for the Intercontinental belt Sami held at the time. That ended in a no contest. Tonight seems like a good time to run it back, and to start getting the frenetic, hard-hitting wrestling that made Ilja NXT and NXT UK champ back on our screens on a regular basis.