With the recent emergence of "Linsanity" in the NBA, the WWE has used that and pushed Santino Marella as their version. It has been a success.

Since the Elimination Chamber, Marella has been getting some of the biggest pops among all WWE Superstars each week. He almost defeated Daniel Bryan in SmackDown's Elimination Chamber and the crowd responded well to it. They got behind Marella and have been ever since.

His recent success has even landed him as the United States Champion. While "Linsanity" in the NBA may have died down a little, Marella's success should not. The fans are eating up everything about him.

Marella was seen as basically just a throwback comic-relief character and nothing more. However, he is not awful in the ring and has enough ability to put on exciting matches.

The United States Championship was becoming relevant again after Dolph Ziggler's long run and then Zack Ryder winning it.

However, then Jack Swagger won the belt and it lost any momentum of being relevant again. It felt as if the WWE just slapped it on Swagger without him earning it.

The WWE decided to let Marella's recent surge take the belt from Swagger. Now the belt is on someone the fans are strongly behind and feel deserves it. 

This may be the only big push that Marella gets in his career and he deserves to get as much as he can out of it. As long as the fans still get behind him like they have been, Marella should remain a factor at the mid-card.