How WWE will find the next top contender to the Intercontinental championship (UPDATED)

It’s actually a pretty good idea!

Sami Zayn showed up on Friday Night SmackDown this week to ask Sonya Deville and Adam Pearce about giving him another match for the Universal championship, feeling he rightly deserves at least one more match. They didn’t go for it, of course, because why would they? Instead, they offered up a match where, if he emerged victorious, he would become the number one contender to the Intercontinental championship.

A 12-man gauntlet match on SmackDown next week.

No other wrestlers were announced for the match. (UPDATE: the participants were revealed later in the show: Zayn, Ricochet, Ivar, Erik, Jinder Mahal, Shanky, Cesaro, Mansoor, Drew Gulak, Sheamus, Angel, Humberto.)

This is welcome news not necessarily just for Zayn or the match itself but for the fact that it will finally give Shinsuke Nakamura something meaningful to sink his teeth into (hopefully). He’s been wandering about aimlessly in tag team matches with Rick BOOGS. Those two are entertaining as hell together, no question, but are they better than a potentially strong feud over the workhorse title?

See you next week.