Details On Andrade Becoming US Champion and Plan For The Title

As we reported last month, Andrade became the new WWE United States champion at a house show in Madison Square Garden, defeating Rey Mysterio. He went on to retain the belt on RAW against Mysterio. The latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Andrade winning the title wasn’t a change of plans for WWE and he was always set to get it.

The reason that Andrade lost to Humberto Carrillo twice leading up to this win was to put Carrillo in the title hunt. That was originally the plan when he was feuding with AJ Styles, who was champion at the time. However, WWE felt that Carrillo lost steam due to the Survivor Series story with NXT. As a result, Rey Mysterio got the title instead and Carrillo was given wins over Andrade to heat him back up.

The plan now is for Andrade to feud with Carrillo and Mysterio to be slotted into the feud between Kevin Owens & Samoa Joe and Seth Rollins & The AOP.

The report noted that there seems to be more of a push to do things at house shows, between the US title change and Randy Orton faking an injury.