With the ascension of Roman Reigns, longtime WWE top man John Cena — at least for now — has been taken out of the main event picture, and is now involved in an upper-mid-card feud with the WWE United States Champion Rusev.
At this month’s WWE pay-per-view — Fast Lane — John Cena will take on Rusev for the United States Championship. Before it was announced as a title match, there was a good deal of speculation that the U.S. Title wouldn’t be on the line, as the feeling within WWE for several years now has been that their main event players are above the “mid-card titles.” Now — at least for the time being — WWE wants to restore prestige to all of their upper-mid-card titles, starting with the U.S. Title.
John Cena was the United States Champion once upon a time. It was a title that helped him get to the next level and burst onto the main event scene. Cena first won the U.S. Title at WrestleMania 20 by defeating Big Show, and he subsequently put his own spin on the title [no pun intended] which would lead to him doing the same thing when he won the WWE Championship by defeating JBL the at the following year’s WrestleMania 21 , which was the first of Cena’s 15 WWE Title reigns.
With WWE planning on having Roman Reigns win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania , it could be a long time before we see the WWE Title on John Cena, which is probably music to a lot of WWE fans’ ears. So, in the meantime, Cena needs something to do and a title to chase.
The John Cena vs. Rusev match was originally supposed to take place at this year’s WrestleMania , but, for some reason, WWE decided to schedule the match for Fast Lane . The most common belief is that the match between Rusev and Cena will have a disputed finish, which will lead to rematch between the two at WrestleMania , where Cena will be the first person to pin or submit Rusev, and win the U.S. Title.
The U.S. Title probably hasn’t meant much to WWE since John Cena last held the title back in 2005. But if WWE goes forward with their plan, and John Cena wins the US Title, the prestige will almost instantaneously return to the once great and meaningful championship, and who knows, maybe we’ll see Cena resurrect his old United States Championship spinner belt, which was a big hit when he originally debuted it in 2004.
[Image via Forbes ]