WWE Raw: 10 Things You Might Have Missed (May 23)
3. A Ticking Clock On Rusev's Reign?
This week's Raw was a packed show, with the company managing to follow up on all of the threads from Extreme Rules - except one. Rusev scored a decisive win over Kalisto at Extreme Rules to capture the United States Championship, but neither man appeared on Raw.
It would have been nice to have seen Rusev and Lana celebrating his return to championship glory, but no such luck. Instead, he was only mentioned in passing, when the announcers hyped that Kalisto would get his title rematch this week on Smackdown.
The last time a champion got a quick rematch on Smackdown was when Zack Ryder lost the Intercontinental Title to The Miz, and that didn't work out too well for the ex-champ - Ryder lost his rematch and was immediately shunted back down the card. In Kalisto's case, it seems likely that he'll also lose, then be out of the U.S. Title picture for the time being.
Could this quick rematch also bode ill for Rusev, though? John Cena is returning to Raw next week, with many fans speculating that he'll either challenge Rusev or defeat "The Bulgarian Brute" for the title on his first show back. If that's the plan, WWE probably wants to get Kalisto's rematch out of the way ASAP so they don't have to have the Lucha Dragon challenge Cena.
Everything's in place for Rusev's reign to be exceedingly brief.