WhatCulture’s WrestleMania 42 wish list puts Trick Williams at the center of one of the hottest possibilities heading toward the show: a Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin-style double turn with Sami Zayn. The idea is not a replay of the 1997 formula, but it is built around the same kind of crowd-shifting moment that turned the wrestling business on its head.
The pitch is simple. WWE should put the United States Title on Trick Williams and use it to strap a rocket to him for the rest of 2026. The outlet says the belt would be a neat thoroughfare to main events for Williams and his “lemon pepper steppers,” and it argues live crowds are already practically begging to cheer for him on SmackDown.
That crowd response is the engine of the whole idea. Once Williams is definitively presented as a babyface on television, those cheers would become roars of approval, and the company would have a clear lane to push him as one of its next major stars. The piece frames it as the best of Trick Willy — not just a short-term reaction, but the foundation for a longer run.
The other half of the equation is Zayn, whose villainy the wrestling world may have forgotten. The article points to his early days as an honorary member of The Bloodline, when the “conspiracy theorist stuff” worked because he could lean into paranoia and manipulation. In this version of the story, the simplest path to the double turn is for Zayn to try to cheat, get caught out several times, and let Williams win the audience over by doing things the hard way.
Williams, in that setup, would play everything fair and square because he believes he is physically gifted enough to rely on skills rather than shortcuts. That is where the friction lives. The wish list is not saying WWE has already done it. It is making the case for a storyline that would let one man rise by force of reaction while another slips into the role of the schemer.
The timing matters because WrestleMania season is where WWE decides who gets the next wave of attention, and the suggestion here is that Trick Williams is already close enough to the crowd’s affection to justify the move. The 1997 double switch between Bret Hart and Steve Austin remains one of WrestleMania’s few twin-turn moments, and this proposal borrows that memory for a new generation of fans.
What happens next is still up to WWE, but the logic behind the pitch is plain: if the company wants a fresh babyface with momentum, the road runs through the United States Title, a willing crowd, and a clean split from Sami Zayn’s old tricks. If it happens, Williams would not just get a title run. He would get a launch.
