Rusev and Aiden English Set To Become SmackDown's Newest Tag Team?

Two guys who have had little direction recently on SmackDown look poised to join forces to become the latest addition to the tag team ranks.

According to a recent rumor, WWE has plans for Aiden English and Rusev to pair-up for the long term very soon. Yes, the team seems quite odd on the surface, but there's also an understanding that both of these guys have great personalities and a pairing could lead to some entertaining segments, as they've already proved they work well together.

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Rusev and English have sporadically been working together since Rusev's feud with Randy Orton began (you may recall English singing "Rusev Day"). They have proven to be a dynamic duo, with English providing his wonky singing and dramatics, while Rusev's dry sense of humor and seriousness balances things out. Often times the most entertaining tag teams have two men or women who's personalities are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and that is certainly the case with Rusev and English.

According to reports, there was originally going to be an eight man tag team match this week on SmackDown, where Rusev and English were going to pair with Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable to take on The Usos and The New Day. This prospective match also clarifies that Gable and Benjamin are in the midst of a heel turn, while The Usos are slowly being turned baby face. We speculated on that point this week in our WWE SmackDown review here at Pop Culture.

The match was cut, but the pairing of Rusev and English appears to be the long term direction.

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There's no doubt SmackDown needs the tag team depth. Outside of the Usos, New Day, and Gable/Benjamin, there are no credible tag team title threats. While the matches were great, this is one of the reasons why we just had a three month feud between two teams. There was nobody else to wrestle for the titles. Period.

This should be good and entertaining for a little while, and it should help elevate English to a steady position on the card, but the end goal still needs to be Rusev as a singles star on Tuesday nights. He's proven to be an entertaining character who can have really good matches against the top names on the roster. Plus, his entrance on the tank at WrestleMania a couple of years ago was one of the greatest entrances of all time.

It's also going to be hard for Rusev to continue to be a heel as long as he is on Total Divas. The man proves to be an entertaining, likable character who also has one of the most entertaining Twitter feeds among the WWE staff.