When WrestleMania falls on Rusev Day, you have to have a fatal four-way

Let’s be real, folks.

The United States Championship scene hasn’t exactly been running hot of late.

Oh sure, the three-way feud between Bobby Roode, Randy Orton, and Jinder Mahal had a surprisingly strong backbone to it, even being built on a somewhat weird skeleton cobbled together from the ashes of a failed top ten list and Jinder’s attempts to play devil’s advocate, but the actual execution left something to be desired.

It needed a spark, something to set the flame. Each of those three men has a role to play, but none of them, at this point in their careers, is exactly a prime mover, and headed into and out of Fastlane, it seemed like we were driving straight towards sleepwalking our way through a solid-but-overly-methodical triple threat at WrestleMania 34.

And then it was Rusev Day

Rusev is that spark.

Okay, so he doesn’t add a lot of storytelling juice to the match, which remains basically one part “contractually obligated rematch” to two parts “SmackDown is the Land of Opportunity, so... have a title shot”, but he’s coming in hot off of pins on both champion Randy Orton and fellow challenger Jinder Mahal, and most importantly, he feels fresh in a way that none of the others quite match.

Plus, Aiden English as his hype man has added a whole other dimension to Mahal’s participation in this, with Sunil Singh stepping up to counter the Shakespeare of Song. The overall effect is enough to take it from an obvious bathroom break match to being something worth caring about.

Four-way fray

Rusev plays a wildcard role in the ring, as well. The other three men are all cut from the same cloth, very methodical, traditional WWE main event style workers that would be at home nearly as much at WrestleMania IV as they are here at WrestleMania 34. In contrast, while the Bulgarian Brute is hardly a high flyer, he brings a dynamic, hard-striking edge that should serve to grease the wheels of this four-way nicely.

Of course the threat of an RKO out of nowhere is omnipresent whenever the Viper is in a match of this variety and should serve to, at worst, even up his odds of retention, but each man has been roughly equally matched all through the build, so it far from a foregone conclusion.

Which of these four men walks out of WrestleMania 34 holding the United States Championship?