Sami Zayn critiques CM Punk ahead of SummerSlam match

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SummerSlam night one takes place tonight (Sat., Aug. 1) from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The event gets rolling at 3 pm ET with the free Countdown show, which runs for three hours on WWE and ESPN’s online outlets, among other places. That leads right on into the premium live event at 6 pm ET, which in the United States will be on ESPN’s new streaming platform. Everywhere else (or if you take Stephanie McMahon’s advice), it’s on Netflix. Cody Rhodes is being a drama queen over his WWE title match against CM Punk Cody Rhodes let the WWE championship slip out of his hands to Sami Zayn at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia. Rhodes was supposed to get his rematch for the gold nine days later on Raw in Chicago, but he was attacked a couple hours before the match by GUNTHER. SmackDown GM Nick Aldis called up CM Punk (who was on hiatus from WWE) as Cody’s surprise replacement, and the rest is history. After Punk won the championship, Cody wasted no time asking for a title match. Punk told him to name the place, and Cody chose SummerSlam. That’s why this main event match is happening tonight. WWE is hyping up Punk vs. Rhodes by saying it’s a match that is years in the making. CM and Cody are friends, so there didn’t need to be any additional reason to fight other than seeing who the better wrestler is with the top belt in WWE on the line. But Rhodes just can’t help himself and snapped backstage after Punk accidentally clipped him in the face with the belt while leaving the ring at Saturday Night’s Main Event. The next time they met in the ring, Cody said this goes beyond the belt and is personal. In explaining why he needs to beat Punk at SummerSlam, he brought up all sorts of other things unrelated to the title, like CM Punk’s pipe bomb promo, some twisted logic about how he respects and loves Punk but doesn’t like him, and how Punk is the one guy on the roster he sweats. Punk called out Cody for being a drama queen and having to always make himself the victim in his story while everyone else is the enemy. Punk said he just wanted an athletic competition between two friends, but Cody can’t handle that, so he adds all this unnecessary bullshit to the equation. With tensions escalating, CM didn’t exactly help matters by talking down to Cody like his weaker little brother, patting him on the head, and calling him “Dusty’s kid.” It all culminated with fists flying (Cody threw the first punch) on last night’s go home edition of SmackDown. The two men threw their friendship away all because Cody had to make it personal. Is CM Punk the one guy on the WWE roster who Cody Rhodes just can’t figure out once the bell rings? Will one of these guys break bad if that’s what it takes to walk out of SummerSlam with the gold? Tune in tonight to find out. The rest of the card Here are the remaining five matches that are currently advertised for night one of SummerSlam . Liv Morgan (c) vs. IYO SKY for the Women’s world championship Liv Morgan has been women’s world champion for over 100 days, yet somehow this is her first title defense, (excluding house shows). IYO and Liv actually met in the final match of the Queen of the Ring tournament in Saudi Arabia, where IYO picked up the win thanks to Danhausen’s curse. IYO immediately called her shot to face Morgan again at SummerSlam, this time with the title on the line. Does IYO have a plan for neutralizing Roxanne Perez and new Women’s Intercontinental Champion Raquel Rodriguez if they end up interfering at ringside on Liv’s behalf? Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar in a Hell in a Cell match Brock Lesnar fake retired from WWE after getting his ass kicked by Oba Femi at WrestleMania 42. Lesnar returned a few weeks later and got his win back on Oba with seven F5s at Clash In Italy. Tonight is the rubber match, and it’s inside Hell in a Cell. Heyman and Lesnar fed Oba a bunch of fake cops to beat up along the way as part of their mind games, and it wasn’t great. I’m going to have to look up which HIAC bouts have the shortest match times in WWE history, because this one may have a chance to break that record. Nick Aldis vs. GUNTHER GUNTHER was a pretty big dumbass during his pursuit of the WWE championship this summer. Instead of taking responsibility for his own failures, he kept pointing the finger at GM Nick Aldis. The glaring problem with his approach is that Nick is a former wrestler who isn’t going to just stand there and get bullied. He put his hands on GUNTHER in respone, which led to WWE putting Nick on administrative leave. When Nick returned, he didn’t add GUNTHER to the WWE championship match at SummerSlam. The Ring General had enough and decided to beat the hell out of the SmackDown GM. Nick recovered in time to show up at Saturday Night’s Main Event, where he blasted GUNTHER in the head with the WWE championship and screwed him out of being added to the SummerSlam main event. This whole thing led to Aldis temporarily relinquishing his duties as SmackDown GM in order to fight GUNTHER tonight at SummerSlam. It’s Nick’s first match in nearly three years. GUNTHER has talked down to him as a failed wrestler who wishes he was GUNTHER. Aldis countered by saying he has nothing to lose at SummerSlam. After he wins, GUNTHER will go from being the Career Killer to his boss’s bitch. The Bella Twins & Paige vs. Fatal Influence Brie Bella and Paige’s run with the WWE women’s tag team championship came to an end a couple weeks ago at Saturday Night’s Main Event when they lost to Fatal Influence. The heels were sore losers after Brie won a singles match against Lainey Reid the following week. Fatal Influence had the numbers advantage during the post-match beatdown, until Nikki Bella finally returned from injury to even things up and whoop some ass. She got on the mic and immediately booked this 6-woman tag team match at SummerSlam. I guess that’s one of the perks of being a WWE Hall of Famer. Royce Keys, LA Knight & Solo Sikoa vs. Jacob Fatu & The Usos It wasn’t that long ago when LA Knight and Jey Uso were teaming up at WrestleMania 42 to beat up some YouTube douchebags. But then Jey decided to fall in line behind the Tribal Chief after Roman Reigns won the world championship that same weekend. Jacob Fatu was soon forced to fall in line as well after losing to Roman in Tribal Combat. With The Bloodline suddenly growing in power again, Knight knew where things were headed. Solo Sikoa also this knew was bad news for everyone on the WWE roster. After the Tongans abandoned Solo, he asked the megastar to join forces with him to stop The Bloodline. This put both men directly in Fatu’s crosshairs. Solo sealed his fate when he pretended to acknowledge the OTC, only to attack The Usos with a Samoan Spike. Royce Keys also got wrapped up in this one because he considers Fatu his family, and tried to talk him out of following Roman’s orders. Fatu has repeatedly attacked Royce since then, leading to this strange 6-man tag team match at SummerSlam. On paper, SummerSlam Saturday looks like a much better card than SummerSlam Sunday. Let’s just hope this doesn’t turn into WrestleMania 42 night one all over again, where a relentless barrage of ads take up way too much of the show, at the expense of the allocated times for each match. What will you be looking for at night one of SummerSlam? Let me know your thoughts on the card in the comments below, Cagesiders.

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While WWE Champion CM Punk is busy gearing up to throw hands with Cody Rhodes in the main event of the first night of SummerSlam tomorrow evening (Sat., Aug. 1, 2026) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sami Zayn is just as busy getting ready for his own match. That doesn’t mean he isn’t taking time out to throw out a few insults at the two headliners. He’s that pissed about working the undercard, even if that match is a number one contender’s bout. If he can beat Finn Balor, he’ll get another shot at Punk. Or Rhodes. He’s down for either of the two, but the more compelling of them might be Punk. His shots hit harder there: .@SamiZayn is completely GOING OFF on Cody Rhodes and CM Punk! 😳 pic.twitter.com/lFCCbOJ46K — WWE (@WWE) August 1, 2026 Naturally, he had to get back to worrying about Balor, who was in the ring talking about exorcising his own demons. He can’t stop thinking about having to relinquish the Universal championship in 2016 due to injury. He’s come a long way since then, and now is the time to break back into the title picture. There are compelling matches for him there too. We’ll see if they end up coming to fruition. In the meantime, how about Zayn calling Punk a corporate poster boy?!? Get complete SmackDown results and coverage of this week’s entire episode by clicking here.