Aiden English & Rusev: A Fad Or Long Term Stars?

[Jack-Hammer]

I think it's safe to say that nobody could've predicted how popular the team of Aiden English and Rusev have become over the course of the past couple of months. As with New Day, they seem to have just the right mix of silliness with legitimate talent and the Chicago fans last night were most definitely in their corner. However, I think the question if whether or not these two are legitimately over or are little more than a passing interest.

Years back, many fans rallied around Zack Ryder to get a push. Fans, writers, etc. put over Ryder's originality and hard work at establishing his own following outside of traditional wrestling norms and felt that more should be done with him. When Ryder won the United States Championship from Dolph Ziggler and TLC just over 6 years ago, however, all that support quickly went away. A lot of fans wanted Ryder pushed because it didn't look like WWE was going to push him so I'm wondering if this is could be the case with English and Rusev.

A lot of us had pretty much written Rusev off and were waiting for announcements that he'd been future endeavored while English seemed destined for the role of jobber for life. English especially has worked hard and done his best with whatever he's been given, even if what he's been given 9 times out of 10 has been crap. If things keep going this way for them, I wouldn't mind at all if they had a run with the tag titles.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Hard to say what things will look like for them in the long run, I will say this at least.... I like the alliance between these two. At first the "Rusev Day" thing was incredibly annoying but it grew on me. I hated Aiden English for the longest time and this alliance is slowly changing that. While it is too early to make a call on whether they will be huge stars or not from getting more over than expected in the last couple of months, I do think that they are good enough as a team to justify a Smackdown Tag Team Championship shot. Not sure when they would get the titles though. The Bludgeon Brothers will probably be the team that takes the titles from The Usos. The Bludgeon Brothers would then need a face team to feud with and Rusev Day could be that team. The right combination of silly and talent has made the alliance work so far. Time will tell if they do become bigger stars. I'll cheer for them and it'll be interesting to see if anything happens for them. That's more than I could say for English before this alliance and I had just about given up on Rusev, so we'll see.

 

[#hamler]

Their match on Tuesday's Smackdown was littered with Rusev Day chants. Their crowd reaction has been building for weeks upon weeks. They've quickly become one of the most interesting things WWE has produced in some time. With that, I don't think anyone in the WWE brass expected them to get this over and when they did, they had nothing for them to do. I'm interested in their t shirt/merchandise sales to see if people actually care about them or if it's just the cool thing to do at the moment.

Wherever the case, WWE needs to pull the trigger on these two before their reaction dies down and the audience moves onto the next shiny new thing. WWE has a habit of waiting to long to capitalize off something popular as shown in the past. Rusev Day's number one contenders match on Smackdown should've been the beginning of something bigger for the duo but no, we get American Alpha 2.0 instead. not that I don't like them or anything

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I could be wrong about this but I feel like this is the new fad right now which isn't a bad thing but I don't see this leading to anything significant in the long run. I feel this is the new 10 chant or fandangoing and in 5 or 6 months something else will arrive and replace them as a fad. So until then, I say let them enjoyed their success, push them just enough to milk everything out of this fad before fans move on to something else and they become forgotten.

 

[stingray11214]

Sadly, this is Santino-Kozlov 2.0. This is more about keeping Rusev away from New Japan or LU than it is about creating a new gimmick. Aiden English is good for comedy and little else at this point. Rusev, through actions by creative, VKM AND himself, have left him at the level of Kozlov, which is very, very sad. He could have been another Nikita Koloff. He HAS the tools for it. Just did not prioritize the business the way VKM wanted him to.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Pretty clearly a fad in the vein of Fandangoing, et all, but both guys are talented and should be doing much more. One has to hope this exposure gets them more properly utilized.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

They're certainly over right now, and they'll probably stay over for a while. Rusev has enough charisma to stay over.

However their reactions will eventually die down if they don't get pushed. There's really no reason for them to at least get a tag title match or even a run soon.

 

[OYDK]

They're one of the many instances of wrestlers getting themselves over with no help from the WWE brass, and as a result, I see them being cut off at the knees at every opportunity. It's very rare to see the WWE run with something like this, and at times, it almost seems like they actively try to sabotage the reactions of those who "aren't meant to get over." Breezango's good for a comedy bit every week but they'll never get a legitimate push in the ring despite being one of the most entertaining pieces of Smackdown every week. Zack Ryder, despite what some may think, was never given a serious opportunity at making a real impact. He was portrayed as Cena's sidekick for months, given a token one month US title run, and then abruptly taken off television. Daniel Bryan was only inserted into the Mania main event after months of the WWE trying everything they could to derail his momentum. The sole reason for him being given his moment was the fans threatening to shit all over Mania 30 if he wasn't involved.

In the end, they'll be remembered as a fad because they'll likely not be given the opportunity to be anything more.