This week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown featured some interesting moments and Sami Zayn once again put the United States Championship on the line in an open challenge.
Ilja Dragunov was the one who answered the challenge as he made his first appearance on WWE programming in over a year. Dragunov made a major statement with his return as he managed to dethrone Sami Zayn to become United States Champion for the first time in his career.
Bodyslam is reporting that Sami Zayn was the one who made the call to have Ilja Dragunov defeat him to win the WWE United States Championship on SmackDown this week.
It’s also being reported that initially Dragunov’s WWE return date was scheduled for September, which means that the return actually got pushed back a few weeks. Originally it was believed that Ilja Dragunov would be returning to Monday Night Raw, but the belief is that the SmackDown brand needed a bit of a shakeup.
Unfortunately for Ilja Dragunov his celebration following his title win was short lived as the members of MFT arrived and attacked both Dragunov and Sami Zayn. Rey Fenix tried to make the save, but he was taken out as well. MFT stood tall until the lights went out and they were confronted by The Wyatt Sicks who motived the members of MFT to back off.