To be clear up front, this is not an attack on Kalisto as United States Champion. Instead, this is a criticism of the WWE’s handling of his reign as champion.
The acrobatic young superstar is thrilling to watch in the ring, but the WWE has so badly botched his almost 100 days as champion that he almost needs to lose the belt so it can get some luster again.
It had that luster as recently as October, when John Cena’s fifth run as United States champion came to an end with the surprise return of Alberto Del Rio. A former world champion, Del Rio only added to the legitimacy that Rusev, Cena and Seth Rollins had given the belt over almost a year of work.
All those men worked together to raise that belt up, but Cena was the leader of the effort when he came down from the world title scene to win the U.S. title and defended it on every show.
Suddenly, with world champion Seth Rollins cast as a chicken heel and the Intercontinental Championship in limbo due to a Daniel Bryan injury, the U.S. title became a highlight of WWE programming.
Just a few months later, though, the belt once held by greats like Ric Flair, Sting, Goldberg and Scott Hall seems all but nonexistent.
Back burner
The worst part about this situation is that the U.S. title has lost importance solely due to booking. Fans were fired up when Kalisto won the belt from Del Rio in January on RAW, but just the next night, he lost it back to Del Rio at the SmackDown taping. Now, there may have been a time when that could be done without much issue, but in 2016, the whole WWE Universe knew immediately.
When that happened, it made Kalisto look like a fluke of a champion. Sure he got his rematch and won the belt back, but those lightning-quick title changes have to be handled with care, and this one wasn’t for some reason.
But even with that, the belt could’ve been salvaged and maintained its importance. WWE booking came up short again, though.
Since Kalisto won the title back at the Royal Rumble, it has only been defended on the pre-show of pay-per-views. Now sometimes, a title match might get pushed to the pre-show because whatever feud that was going just didn’t take off with fans the way the creative team would’ve liked. But the first of these matches was the resolution of the feud with Del Rio, a best-of-three-falls match that lasted just 15 minutes.
Then came WrestleMania 32, when Kalisto faced Ryback in a match so early in the pre-show that most fans weren’t even in the arena yet. Large numbers of the fans at home also weren’t expecting a match that early. The decision has drawn criticism from Ryback, who said in an interview that both men deserved better booking.
Now they’re booked for another match on the pre-show at Payback, with very little to no explanation as to why Ryback gets a rematch. What’s worse is that there has been no build to the match, as Kalisto has been working more as a tag team partner with fellow Lucha Dragon Sin Cara.
All this lackluster booking has left the U.S. title well behind the other belts in terms of importance. Usually that would be partly due to the champion himself, but this time, the blame rests almost solely on whoever is booking the belt as such a non-factor in the overall story of the WWE.
Fixing the issue
The general resolution to all this is simple: Give the belt importance.
That can be done in a variety of ways, but unfortunately for Kalisto, it would seem all of them involve his losing the belt. Ryback, who is a tweener at best, should beat him brutally at Payback and go on a tear until he’s beaten by someone like Kevin Owens or maybe a returning Cena or Randy Orton. Whoever gets that nod should be someone the fans really respect that will be seen as a legitimate champion.
The U.S. title would be a good spot for the likes of Baron Corbin or Apollo Crews, but neither of them has the kind of status in the company yet to keep the belt off the pre-show. Let one of them take it off the next champion after it has gained some importance.
The belt could just go straight from Kalisto to Owens, but either way, the booking has left Kalisto as damaged goods for now on the singles front, which is a shame. He could either go back to the tag division or get into some filler feuds for the next several weeks. With Money in the Bank coming up, that would be a good time to get him into a main event-level match without a major feud and get his momentum back up.
Then he could go after singles gold again with a fresh start, but this time, the creative team needs to resolve his tag situation so he doesn’t get caught between the two again and repeat history.
