The quest to get Humberto Carrillo over

Andrade (c) vs. Humberto Carrillo

United States championship match

Since Paul Heyman has taken over Raw, word has it there’s a handful of young guys who he wants to get over. Names that include Aleister Black, Andrade, Buddy Murphy, and Humberto Carrillo.

And for the most part, it’s been going well. Black and Murphy had a series of matches that helped elevated their statuses. And after Murphy lost that series, he used his frustration to join Seth Rollins in a main event angle and won tag team gold. Meanwhile, Andrade has been killing it in a long feud with Rey Mysterio.

Humberto Carrillo, however, has not gone as smoothly.

Carrillo’s Raw debut was met was little crowd excitement. He was immediately put into a program with then United States champion AJ Styles. They had two matches that were pretty good, both that AJ won. Basically Carrillo lost two matches in front of crowds that just didn’t seem to be that interested to start his main roster tenure. (In the WWE nowadays, going the distance with someone good doesn’t mean much. Given most matches are very competitive, being competitive against someone really talented doesn’t help differentiate anyone.)

Compared to the other guys mentioned above, Carrillo was in a tougher position. Crowds knew Aleister Black, who debuted about a year ago as part of a tag team with Ricochet. They know Andrade, who has been having matches with Rey Mysterio on and off for the better part of a year. And they know Murphy, if not from his very long reign as Cruiserweight champion, then definitely from last summer when he had star making matches with Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan.

That’s not the same story with Carrillo. Humberto was part of a seldom viewed 205 Live for a brief period of time and then was immediately moved to Raw, without even time in NXT to help build an audience. That’s not an easy position to be put in.

So surely they hope this current feud with the popular Andrade can turn that around.

It started with some heat. They were the last two men in a #1 contenders gauntlet match for the United States championship, then held by Rey Mysterio. Andrade blindsided Carrillo, then exposed the concrete outside the ring, and DDT’d him on it.

That was a month ago. In that time, Andrade won the title from Mysterio at Madison Square Garden. He retained it last week in an exciting ladder match. To add injury to insult, El Idolo tried to DDT Mysterio on the concrete like he did Humberto. That’s when Carrillo returned to make the save.

That will lead into this Sunday’s United States title match. So we don’t get an added week of Humberto showing some of that revenge fire prior to the match. In essence their new plan to get him over was to keep him off TV for a month.

But the crowd responded to him more when he saved Mysterio than they had prior so maybe creative finally found the right course of action to endear Carrillo to the fanbase. Plus Andrade is a great heel, especially with his manager Zelina Vega at his side. A strong villain is essential when it comes to building a hero.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Carrillo winning the title this soon, so this could just be another loss against another talented individual. And if that’s the case. Then what?

We’ll just have to wait until Sunday and beyond to find out.

Humberto Carrillo tries to get a measure of revenge by taking Andrade’s United States title from him tomorrow at the Royal Rumble, starting at 7 PM ET on the WWE Network. And keep it here to CagesideSeats.com for all of your Royal Rumble coverage.