Rusev has had an interesting journey in WWE but in a new interview, he's finally explained why WWE moved away from the idea of him representing Russia (a move which even saw Lana completely drop her Russian accent and start talking with her natural American one).
Believe it or not, it all boils down to how closely Vince McMahon pays attention to global affairs!
"It’s true, we keep up and Vince [McMahon] keeps up with what’s going on globally," he explains. "He noticed that tension between Russia and America at the time and that’s when it was decided that I’ll go represent Russia and Putin and whatnot. But things changed, [Donald] Trump was elected as US President and he is a WWE Hall Of Famer etc."
In other words, WWE started pushing the idea of Rusev representing Russia because it was topical but changed course because the McMahon family is close with Donald Trump. That's understandable in fairness and Rusev went on to explain another possible reason for the change.
"Also people saw more [of me] from Total Divas and we started trying different stuff and we struck gold with ‘Rusev Day’ two years ago. It started kind of as a joke. After Randy Orton beat me in 10 seconds and I beat him back the following week it was decided that we’ll throw a celebration and we got the Mayor of Plovdiv to give the key me to the city. Aiden English who is a great singer and actor learned the Bulgarian anthem in a day and sung it and we just started adding ‘Rusev Day’ to everything. That’s when things took off, the [Rusev Day] shirt was the top seller."
It's a shame WWE never really capitalised on the Rusev Day gimmick because it was over in a big way with wrestling fans and could have seen him have a successful run as world champion. It is what it is, though, and with rumours swirling about Rusev's WWE future, perhaps All Elite Wrestling is ready for its own Rusev Day?
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