Opinion: Why Rusev will be this year's Jinder Mahal
Rusev will be challenging the current WWE Champion AJ Styles for the WWE Championship at this year's Extreme Rules PPV. This is very exciting considering this will be Rusev's first time challenging for the WWE Championship or a world title in general.
There is a question to this match and it is - 'will Rusev be this year's Jinder Mahal with the WWE Championship?'. The build up to the match was very similar to Jinder's.
Jinder Mahal won a six-pack challenge match and was inserted into the world title scene. Rusev won a gauntlet match on a recent episode of SmackDown. Rusev is getting a shot at the world title and both seemed out of nowhere.
One of the major differences between Jinder winning the title to Rusev possibly winning it is that the fans are behind Rusev 100 percent. Rusev was liked by fans before but the ''Rusev Day'' gimmick has put him over tremendously.
Mahal's first run never really stuck and fans didn't really care for him. The same can be said about him now but the only difference is that he gets a crowd reaction now. It's mainly boos, but at least he's getting a reaction.
Rusev as the WWE Champion will be an insane sight to see. Fans have begged WWE to do something with Rusev for a long time. Could this be WWE finally listening to the fans or just something else?
It seems like WWE are reusing the same gimmick from last year but only this time it may actually work. AJ Styles has been a great world champion and deserves to be where he is but fans are wanting something new.
It's clear that for whatever reason WWE doesn't want Nakamura to be champion. Giving someone who isn't usually in the world title picture like Rusev could work.
The Jinder Mahal experiment didn't work as fans weren't into it at all. Could this experiment with Rusev (assuming WWE go through with it) actually work? I think so, do you? Have your say in the comments.