Reason why popular RAW star reportedly lost US Title push to Rey Mysterio

It's been an interesting few months for Rey Mysterio. He began gaining momentum around October and by November, he was the #1 contender for Brock Lesnar's WWE Championship.

While he was never going to beat Lesnar, he certainly came close and had a great match with him. One night later, he dethroned AJ Styles in an excellent match to become a 2-time United States Champion.

He lost it at Madison Square Garden to Andrade - his on-and-off rival for the last couple of years. According to Dave Meltzer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the plan was always for Andrade to become the United States Champion.

Mysterio winning the title, however, wasn't on the cards. WON said that the original plan was for popular star Humberto Carrillo to be the man chasing Andrade:

The title change wasn’t a change of plans. Andrade was planned for the title, which is why he lost twice to Humberto Carrillo, to get Carrillo into the U.S. title chase. That was planned several weeks back but the NXT angle with A.J. Styles led to some changes and Carrillo lost steam, so they went with Mysterio.

It's interesting that he reportedly lost his push. Some rumors were floating about recently that Carrillo is not on the "list" of superstars that Paul Heyman intends to push - such as Aleister Black, Buddy Murphy, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre, etc.

It's unfortunate, but the reality is that Carrillo was given his opportunity to get over and hasn't done much since. We can't fully blame him since it's harder for him to cut promos in English, but his in-ring work hasn't mesmerized the WWE Universe either. We can see him taking up a midcard position and that's alright because not everyone can be a top star.

Andrade, however, has proven to be the man to go with and hopefully, the United States Champion is just a stepping stone for bigger and better things.