The challengers are starting to line up for US Champion Seth Rollins

If you’re a fan of Seth Rollins — and a lot of you are — the Oct. 17 episode of WWE Raw was the episode for you. Fresh off of his tainted win over Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship, Rollins rolled into Oklahoma City wearing his loudest suit and bragged about his recent triumph.

Like a lot of recent Rollins promos, WWE probably gave Rollins too much time to bloviate, as the promo leaned too heavily on exposition, but the live crowd ate it up, which is all that matters. Once “The Revolutionary” (he still hasn’t explained what that means in relation to him) finished congratulating himself, Mustafa Ali walked to the ring to confront the new champion.

Ali asked for a title shot against Rollins, and the champion, of course, declined before belittling and attacking Ali. Rollins’ night wouldn’t end there.

WWE has already established a couple of challengers for Seth Rollins’ United States Championship.

Later in the broadcast, Rollins defended his newly-won belt against recent archrival Matt Riddle in the show’s main event. Before that match took place, though, Rollins interrupted the returning Elias’ concert, which led to Elias remaining at ringside to watch the big title bout.

Well, Elias did more than watch, as he knee’d Rollins in the face midway through the bout (Riddle argued with the referee while this happened), ate a superkick from Rollins, got knocked into Riddle in a sequence that ultimately led to Rollins pinning Riddle.

After the match, Rollins quickly shifted to attacking Elias and Riddle until Ali surprisingly ran down and paid “The Architect” back for cheap shotting him a couple of hours prior. Ali knocked the champ woozy with an enziguiri and sent him scurrying out of the arena.

With a couple of effective angles, WWE has set up a couple of interesting challengers for Rollins. Elias works as a traditional midcard challenger; he has cultivated a solid following with his “concerts” and because his popularity isn’t centered around his wrestling or in-ring credibility, he can absorb losses better than most babyfaces. He’s also pretty bland when the bell rings, but as we saw at Money in the Bank 2018, Rollins can carry him to a good match.

Rollins vs. Ali, of course, is the dream match fans have booked in their heads since Rollins won the title. On an even more positive note, WWE get the build to that off to a good start by scripting Ali to stand tall to close the show after shrewdly playing into fans’ expectations for the company with Rollins’ attack earlier in the show. Like Elias, few fans expect Ali to win the title, but as long as the impending match with Rollins lives up to the hypes, it won’t matter.

With these two chasing Rollins for the next few weeks, WWE should have little trouble keeping the US Title picture interesting until Lashley returns to pursue the gold that he was screwed out of.