Cody Rhodes to defend his WWE Title in a Triple Threat match at Night of Champions 2026 after making a huge request to Nick Aldis

It is official as Cody Rhodes will be defending his WWE Championship in a huge triple threat match at Night of Champions 2026 next week – and the best part is that it was made on Cody’s request.

This week on SmackDown was an undeniably frustrating one for The American Nightmare. In fact, the last three weeks have been quite frustrating. Not only did he defend the WWE Title against Gunther at Clash in Italy, but it ended controversially after Gunther’s leg was under the ropes for two of the three counts, meaning the result should have been invalid. While WWE doesn’t reverse results that are final, they did give Gunther another shot, and he picked Sami Zayn as the special guest referee as compensation for the injustice in Turin. However, this backfired hugely as Gunther and Sami Zayn went at it in the match. Zayn got powerbombed and cost Gunther multiple times after that, eventually doing a quick three-count to cost The Ring General. Even Cody Rhodes was furious about the way things played out. So after the match, a backstage argument led to Nick Aldis restarting the match, only for Sami Zayn to interfere and cause a DQ.

There are a lot of people furious with Sami Zayn – fans, Nick Aldis, and even Cody Rhodes. The American Nightmare would approach Nick Aldis backstage while things were being worked out and said that there was only one way to deal with the situation – a triple threat match. Nick Aldis agreed to it, and it is official: Cody will face Gunther and Sami Zayn at Night of Champions 2026.

Now that is a main event worth watching if it does headline the show. Night of Champions will be stacked as it will also feature the King and Queen of the Ring finals.