It’s A Double Holiday. Title Change Takes Place On SmackDown Live.

You better stretch the calendar. Earlier this year, there was no one hotter in WWE than Rusev. He’s one of the biggest surprises in WWE as he should have been little more than a muscular evil foreigner, but he’s turned out to be incredibly charismatic, which has put him over with the fans. That has turned him into something almost no one expected with popularity to match. As it turns out, that can mean something very good.

This week on SmackDown Live, Rusev defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to win the United States Title for the third time in his career. Rusev was announced as the #1 contender last week after requesting a title shot for weeks. This is first title reign since 2016 and he has held the title for about nine and a half months combined over his first three reigns. There is no word on when he will be defending the title first.

Well we have to look at it. Here’s how Rusev won the title:

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev - United States Championship Match: SmackDown LIVE, Dec. 25, 2018

Opinion: Good for him. A lot of people, myself included, had written Rusev off as someone who was never getting the big push no matter how over he was. WWE had the chance at WrestleMania and it’s nice to see him finally the chance to see where he can go. It’s not like Nakamura’s title reign was an astounding success or anything, so this is the best choice all around.

Are you glad Rusev won the title? Who should take it from him? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 1997 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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