Money In The Bank Predictions: Rusev VS Titus O'Neil

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Wrestling World, I hope you are all well and good! So we are mid way through the year and this weekend one of the most important pay per views in the wrestling calendar takes place. Money in the bank will air live from the T-Mobile arena in in Las Vegas on the WWE network. The main event will see current champion Roman Reigns defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship against his former brother and long time rival, Seth Rollins. The card will also see the tag team championships defended and the two thousand and sixteen Money in the Bank winner will be crowned. All this week I will be uploading prediction posts for every single match set to take place this up and coming Sunday. Each day we will be taking a look into a different match that has been made official. Review and analysing the action we have seen so far between the opponents and discussing the story and feud in detail all to eventually create our final bold predictions ahead of the pay per view on Sunday. Talking of Sunday, throughout the show I will be live tweeting including the kick off show right through to the very end. The following Morning I will upload my full review and reactions for the show along with predictions for the following episode of Monday night RAW. Now, a quick disclaimer; I know that the brand split/extension will be happening next month but throughout these prediction posts this week I won't be talking in full detail about the role those plans will have on the Money in the bank pay per view. Instead I will link bellow any blog posts I have already written that are related to the bran split announcement. As always, any recent blog posts will be linked bellow including the latest RAW review and reactions posts. Finally, you can let me know what your predictions are for every match on the card including the Money in the bank ladder match by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.

It may have took him a while to find his spotlight but this weekend Titus O'Neil will finally get his moment when he challenges Rusev for the United States Championship live on the WWE Network. These are two superstars with very different purposes but the same goal, to leave Money in the bank the United States Champion. But who walks out the victor?

Over the past month or so Titus O'Neil has been setting his sights on the United States Championship. Slowly building momentum the former tag team champion has picked up several victories along the way and has finally gotten what he has wanted all along. A shot at the United States Championship. If you have been reading my blog for long enough you will know all too well that I have been a fan of O'Neil for a very very long time dating right back to his time on NXT.  I have written a number of posts taking about how underrated and underutilised he is also speaking of feuds and storyline's the WWE could have and should have written him in. You look at O'Neil and you see a WWE Superstars. He's tall, he's strong, he looks dominate, intimidating and threatening and once in the ring he has shown that he can sling other superstars around with such ease. We all also know how massively charismatic he is also.   He's  a superstar the WWE really could have invested a lot of time and effort into and he most certainly could have been a great success working as a dominate, unique entertaining heel. Saying that he has had a couple of decent matches here and there and his run this time last year as one half of the WWE Tag Team Champions was much deserved. Titus' singles career is something that has always needed a push and now this weekend he gets the opportunity he has always wanted and deserved when he faces Rusev for the WWE United States Championship.

I do think that the WWE have gone wrong with this feud. They have once again gone down that root of Rusev being the American hating champion and O'Neil being the patriotic champion. I love Rusev's character and I never want them to make dramatic changes to it. However, changing things up is so so important and working a feud differently to what we have seen from Rusev as champion already does neither superstar any good.

It is no secret that I am a big Rusev fan. I have sat here many times before talking extremely highly of the two time United States Champion and last year he featured in my top ten WWE Superstars of the year post. Since debuting on the main roster Rusev has gone from strength to strength progressing and improving more and more as the weeks go by. In his debut year he managed to become the US Champion, feud with several top superstars including a highlight twenty fifteen feud with Jack Swagger and of course a brilliant story with John Cena with saw the NXT Graduate take on the fifteen time world champion at his first Wrestlemania. Now, like ninety percent of WWE Superstars Rusev has had his bad patch. There was a time where his booking slipped massively. He suffered an injury that took him out for a thew months and when he was added to the League of Nations faction his booking was far too weak. However, over the past couple of months the Bulgarian Brute has manged to climb his way back up and it is almost as though those bad months never even took place. A short brief feud with Kalisto allowed Rusev to remind everyone that he is one of the most dominate, strong and promising WWE superstars currently on the active roster. His match with Kalisto yes could have been even stronger but he dominated that short feud massively demolishing Kalisto and making every move he delivered look extremely painful and devastating. His victory last month at Extreme Rules was much deserved. Despite his little setbacks RuRu has manged to bounce back perfectly and has remained a promising superstar with great potential. I do believe that his booking could have and should have been much stronger in recent weeks. The WWE appear to have this habit of shoving Jack Swagger (who we will talk about more later on) into matches with his old rival, Rusev. It would have been nice to have seen Rusev featured in more promos and segments during the build up of this match. Anyone that watched his WWE Interview with Micheal Cole a thew weeks back knows all too well that Rusev is more than capable of handling himself well in interviews. There sure is more that the WWE could have done to push this feud a little more and get everyone excited but this remains a match I am defintley interested in.

If you read last weeks RAW highlights post than you will know that I was actually expecting this match to be a triple threat with the WWE adding Jack Swagger. Following what we had seen on RAW and Smackdown the week before most fans expected to see the former World Champion in the

mix and given the opportunity to become the United States Champion. In fact it would have been a great move. An interesting triple threat between three different superstars all possessing a great amount of Size would have actually been even more interesting than this simple one on one. However, saying that I am interested in seeing how this match plays about. Here we have two superstars at different stages of their career. On the one hand we have Rusev; young, bag of potential, extremely talented and has plenty of years a WWE Superstar ahead of him. On the other hand we have Titus O'Neil; a man that has been with the company for a good while now who has struggled to get his moment and unlike Rusev doesn't have as much time left as a WWE Superstar. When you write it like that and you think about both careers a lot of people would side with Titus and lets be fair he is after all the baby face and anyone would agree that he deserves to be champion. But I have to admit that walking into this match up on Sunday I'm team Rusev. I am a fan that does not like to see championships bouncing back and fourth onto different superstars and I do really want to see Rusev remain as champion for that reason but also because I feel as though that leading into SummerSlam there is going to be a great deal that he will be able to  do that I'm confident everyone will enjoy.

So they are my predictions for the United States Championship match set to take place this weekend. As always I would love to know what your predictions are and what you would like to see happen both in this match and every other match on the card so feel free to leave a comment bellow or tweet me at @TezangiVictoria.

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