5 Superstars Who Could Challenge John Cena For the US Title

John Cena’s US Title Open Challenge is on the card again and with it the hunting season for the US gold is now open. Here are my top 5 picks to become the next US Champion!

Rusev

It’s obvious the Bulgarian Brute is on a hunt for gold. To make it even more dangerous, Rusev has set a hot girl with a marriage wish to get him that title.

Summer’s quest to hearing wedding bells hit its first roadblock when her beloved “RuRu” didn’t manage to knock out Ryback from the #1 Contender’s spot for the IC championship. However, all is not lost since there are other champions to target.

Rollins is too high profile and he’s quite busy with a certain demon at the moment. Also, the Authority would never grant Summer a WWE WHC match, while Seth is still champion. After all, he’s still supposedly their golden boy.

Cena’s US Title Open Challenge, however, is open to anybody. There’s no better opportunity to reach for some gold than to target Cena. It would make sense for Rusev, as well. He made a name for himself, holding this title and John Cena was the one, who took everything away from him. It would only be natural for the Bulgarian Brute to try and do the same to Cena.

Who knows, that could actually put Rusev back on track! That’s of course if he doesn’t go through with the whole wedding plan. Unfortunately for Summer, WWE weddings never go well and usually they are a cringe-worthy experience for the fans too.

New Day

The New Day have been targeting the US title since Cena relaunched his Open Challenge. What’s more impressive is that they got “serious” in their attempts to get the championship.

We’ve never seen the New Day in this light. They’ve always been heel but they’re usually funny and likable. Now they’re getting too strong to be taken as a joke, even if it’s in a good way. On RAW, the New Day caused mayhem. They left the US Champion, the #1 Contender for the US Title and the #1 Contenders for the Tag Team Titles, lying helpless in the middle of the ring.

On SmackDown, they claimed to have become greater than the legends of old and the greatest of our age. The most dominant three-man stable of our era is the Shield, so naturally the New Day are directly competing with them. The one thing the Shield had that the New Day don’t is the US title. If they are to even come close to matching the Shield in the history books, the New Day need to go big, they need to defeat John Cena and they need to destroy him with authority.

Dolph Ziggler

The man, whose shot at the title the New Day stole, was Dolph Ziggler. However, on Smack Down, he claimed that John Cena was his “good friend”. This should imply that Cena would be more than willing to grant his “friend” another championship opportunity, especially when it wasn’t Ziggler’s fault that he could not compete on RAW.

Ziggler is the only man, who could defeat Cena for the title, while still being face and he’s the only face midcard superstar, who has the credit to do so. I know that Cesaro could be a name, thrown as a counterargument to this, but regardless of his talent, the Swiss Superman is nowhere near Ziggler in terms of momentum. It might have been in a ridiculous love triangle midcard storyline, but the Show-Off arguably came out the winner, whereas Cesaro was awarded only a streak of losses.

Dolph is the fan favourite. The crowd loves him, he puts on a good show and from what we’ve seen, face Dolph is a fighting champion you want to watch. The only downside of Ziggler being the new US champ would be the issue of finding him good opponents. No one wants to see Miz vs. Dolph or Rusev vs. Ziggler again, at least not so soon after their last rivalry.  One good challenger I can see in the midcard is Stardust, who also happens to be the next possible candidate for Cena’s title on my list.

Stardust

Stardust is a great character, who unfortunately suffers a lack of purpose. He tried so hard to find one in Neville but the Man that Gravity Forgot rejected Stardust’s generous offering of a prolonged rivalry. His attempts to form some sort of a partnership also failed, mostly because of the WWE Creative’s baffling decisions. Stardust was booked to inexplicably ditch King Barrett and then his Cosmic Wasteland stable was given no chance of success whatsoever.

However, Stardust is a constant stream of ideas. He can flow from a storyline to another without losing a single drop of entertainment value in the process. On SmackDown, he resorted to card reading to choose his next target. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be a king, so Barrett could be crossed out.  It wasn’t going to be love related, either. So what would be a better direction to take than chasing the gold?

Stardust would be a refreshing champion. He’s different. His promos are quirky but exciting, at the same time. He is a tremendous wrestler and tells a story in the ring. Yet, it’s been a long time since Cody’s been handed a title, despite his qualities. At least, with the US gold around his waist, Stardust could be given the opportunity to develop some truly entertaining rivalries.

The one thing that worries me is that Stardust doesn’t have a high enough profile to be allowed to defeat Cena. It just doesn’t look plausible from where they stand on the card right now. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time the WWE’s made a drastic turn when it comes to creative direction.

King Barrett

Barrett just returned and he seems to have made some refreshing changes to his character. He offered Neville a handshake before their SmackDown fight. Later on the King explained it was because he was a “classy Englishman”. It might be just a little tweak of character but it fits him perfectly. An “English gentleman” is a far more fitting description of a king than an “ex bare-knuckle fighter” or a “pub brawler” ever was.

Once upon a time, Barrett did beat John Cena. It was in his Nexus days. With enough faith from the Creative, he could do it again. This much more relaxed and collected version of King Barrett that operates with graciousness and class will be pleasant to watch. And if the WWE is struggling to find him good face opponents, Barrett could easily be made a tweener or even a face to attract more enemies.

 

What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts, opinions, feedback and anything else that was raised