Lana has shed some light on the issues Rusev had working in AEW.
After he was released from WWE in 2020, Rusev soon signed with AEW on a multi-year contract. While things started well for The Redeemer with feuds with Best Friends and an impressive TNT Championship run, the following years saw him being used less and less on TV.
The star’s final appearance saw him defeat Andrade El Idolo at Worlds End in December 2023. After that, Rusev was absent for months before finally requesting his release in September 2024 and subsequently leaving the company the following February. By that April, the star had returned to WWE.
On the latest edition of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Rusev’s wife, Lana, spoke about her husband’s frustration with his position in AEW, explaining he wanted to wrestle every week on TV, and prefers WWE’s method of story-telling.
“Both him and I love telling stories, and WWE is a storytelling factory. And he is incredible at what he does. He’s the ‘Super Athlete.’ He loves playing a villain. He loves, absolutely loves WWE-style storytelling.
“So I think it was — and he wanted to wrestle every week on TV. That was a big thing for him. He loves wrestling. It wasn’t about a check for him. So it was like, yeah, maybe he made more money at AEW or something, but he wanted — it was more important for him to get out there and be wrestling, it was really hard for him to not be working.”
Rusev was most recently a participant in ‘The Last Time Is Now’ tournament, losing to Jey Uso in the quarter-finals.
Rusev Hit Back At Rumours Of Refusing To Lose In AEW
Recently, Rusev refuted rumours about his absence from AEW TV. While many believe the Bulgarian Brute refused to lose in the promotion, leading to fewer opportunities, he claimed on SHAK Wrestling that wasn’t the case.
“Clearly when I lost to Sammy Guevara that didn’t make any sense and when I lost to Daniel Bryan right after that, that didn’t make any sense. So, let the people go back and review whatever I’ve done and we talk about that but losing now, it’s just part of the business, not everybody just wins every week,”
During his five years in AEW, Rusev only wrestled 36 matches and was on the losing end in four.
H/T to F4WOnline for the above transcription.
