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The mystery angle of the father of Maria Kanellis' child resumed on this week's RAW and in a surprising turn of events, the returning Rusev was revealed as the father of Maria's unborn son.
Dave Meltzer provided a big backstage update on the ongoing storyline on the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Most importantly, Rusev is not the father. The angle, which is being treated more like a running joke rather than a proper storyline, is expected to be stretched out further leading up to the big revelation in the end.
Maria Kanellis angle back on RAW this week, the eventual plan is to reveal who the father is and build to that as a mystery for a ratings boost. Rusev is not the answer. It was described that this will be more a running joke than an angle building to a major reveal
A brief history of the storyline
Maria Kanellis and her husband Mike teamed up to take on Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch on the July 1st episode of RAW. Maria revealed during the match that she was expecting a child and it kicked off an inconsistent angle that also had both Mike and Maria become 24/7 Champions at one point in time.
Maria has continuously disparaged her husband as part of the story while stating that he is not the man who impregnated her. A gender reveal party was organized on this week's RAW in which Maria revealed that she was expecting a baby boy and that Ricochet was the real father.
That turned out to be a red herring as after Ricochet defeated Mike in a brief match, Maria introduced the previously absent Rusev as the father of her child. Talk about unwanted surprises.
Rusev's return garnered an underwhelming response from the fans as he went on to destroy Mike Kanellis in another squash match. Poor Mike.
As things stand, WWE should have a few twists in store in this angle and the first among those is to get Rusev out of this angle. Machka deserves better.
