During Sunday’s WWE Fastlane 2018 results, fans saw a brand new champion emerge just weeks before the WrestleMania pay-per-view arrives. The win may have come as a shock for some fans based on the length of the title reign, but seems to also set in motion a recently-predicted match for the big event in New Orleans. In addition, the latest championship win for “The Viper” Randy Orton adds his name to the history books, yet again.
As reported by ProWrestling.net in their Fastlane review, Randy Orton is now the brand new WWE United States Champion. Orton was booked several weeks ago by Shane McMahon to face Bobby Roode for the Championship after weeks of storyline segments. During those segments, “The Modern Day Maharaja” also got involved, suggesting that Roode felt he was better than Orton. However, “The Viper” made the statement that it probably isn’t the case as he came out on top and walked away champion Sunday night.
The match was said to have lasted just over 19 minutes. At one point, Roode took control and hit a powerbomb on Orton for a near fall. “The Viper” came back with a superplex from the corner. A bit later, Roode was able to get another near fall after hitting the spine buster. However, he was caught when he went for a leaping move off the second rope. In typical Randy Orton fashion, he hit the surprise RKO out of nowhere to drop Roode and get the winning pinfall.
The match had ended with little time for celebration as Jinder Mahal got involved. He rushed in to attack Orton after the victory. Roode was able to fight off “The Modern Day Maharaja” and hit the Glorious DDT to plant him on the mat. He followed up by hitting the same finisher on Randy Orton. That seems to make a statement as WWE heads down the road to WrestleMania .
It seems to now become apparent that Orton will defend the United States Championship in a Triple Threat match against Jinder Mahal and Bobby Roode. That gives all three superstars a decent spot on this year’s pay-per-view card. As far as the outcome, will Jinder Mahal possibly claim the title from Orton? It seems the set up is there so that Jinder can draw heat with the U.S. title while also telling Roode that he’s capable of beating Orton, but Roode is not.
Just like that, ADVANTAGE: VIPER! Will it be @REALBobbyRoode or @RandyOrton who walks into #WrestleMania as #USChampion ? #USTitle #WWEFastlane pic.twitter.com/mJvlpkMgFa
— WWE (@WWE) March 12, 2018
Bobby Roode won the United States title during a tournament set up after Dolph Ziggler vacated the title several months ago. The U.S. Championship marked the former NXT champ’s first gold on the main roster. However, his title reign wasn’t all that “glorious,” lasting just 54 days. In all fairness, though, that’s six times as long as Dolph Ziggler held the title before vacating it.
As far as Randy Orton goes, this is his first-ever reign with the United States Championship and puts him on the list of WWE’s Grand Slam Champions. On Sunday night, Orton put his name in the history books as the 18th superstar in professional wrestling to have won four specific championships. Those titles for Orton are the WWF/WWE Championship, WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship, Intercontinental, and now United States titles.
Orton now joins other WWE superstars to have accomplished the feat including Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Daniel Bryan, and Chris Jericho, as well as newcomers Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose.