How Goes Kalisto And His United States Title Reign?

Many fans would say John Cena helped the United States Championship. He elevated the title with his open challenges and the quality of matches he was putting on last year. Even his critics would praise him. He traded the title with the WWE Champion, Seth Rollins. The title just felt that important.

John Cena lost the title to the returning Alberto Del Rio. There wasn't a huge drop off. Del Rio won it in decisive fashion. The WWE tried to run some kind of gimmick between Del Rio and Zeb Colter. That flopped when the WWE ran with The League of Nations. Del Rio holding a title helped to give the group a bit more credibility. There might not have been regular open challenges, but the title still felt important.

Del Rio then traded the title with Kalisto. When it was all said and done, Kalisto was left still holding the United States Championship. The title definitely has been brought back down to mediocre levels. Kalisto did have that successful title defense against Ryback at Wrestlemania, but you cannot really say much else. He has been pushed as a tag-team wrestler with Sin Cara just as much as he has been pushed as a singles wrestler defending his title. I am not against one wrestler in a tag team holding a singles title, but what has been happening recently with the United States Championship shows why these kind of reigns should be short. Kalisto has two things going for him and the WWE isn't going far with either one.

Is he back feuding with Ryback? Ideally, the WWE should just have Sin Cara turn heel and have those two feud for the United States Championship. That would be a fresher feud. If they are serious about grooming Kalisto to be the new Rey Mysterio, he needs to break out on his own. He may be a great in-ring worker, but lack of individual focus on him will hold him back.

I do not think the WWE will be able to build him up to be the new Rey Mysterio. First of all, the WWE didn't really "create" Rey Mysterio. Mysterio was making a name for himself before the WWE signed him. He was having success in WCW. I'm not saying the WWE did nothing for him. He won a few World Championships in the WWE. Compared to Rey Mysterio, Kalisto does not have that kind of development pre-WWE. To make matters worse, the WWE was more efficient a decade ago when they had Rey Mysterio. Injury issues and the WWE becoming less efficient contributed to Rey being treated less spectacularly in his final years in the WWE. The WWE not being able to put proper individual focus on Kalisto is an example of inefficiency. Lastly, the WWE was willing to push Mysterio up the card. He went from winning Cruiserweight Championships to World Championships. How likely is it that Kalisto gets promoted? The WWE has a congested main-event scene, including part-timers and some guys currently injured. If they do not view Kalisto as an A-tier priority eventually, he will one day get lost in the shuffle for the sake of pushing some of these new NXT guys. And that's not how you make a new Rey Mysterio.