WWE Issues Statement On Lana Promo Controversy Denying MH17 Link

"Last night's segment during WWE's Battleground event was in no way referring to the Malaysia Airlines tragedy."

After receiving huge criticism from the media, particularly here in the UK, WWE have responded with a statement regarding Lana's controversial promo at last night's WWE Battleground PPV. Issued on WWE.com, the statement reads;
"Last night's segment during WWE's Battleground event was in no way referring to the Malaysia Airlines tragedy. The storyline with characters Rusev and Lana has been a part of WWE programming for more than 3 months. WWE apologizes to anyone who misunderstood last night's segment and was offended."
Whether the media has blown the whole saga out of proportions is up for debate, but regardless, it is probably fair to say that it was at least insensitive of the company to have Lana cut a promo before Rusev's match against Jack Swagger last night. Given the recent tragedy of the Malaysian Airlines plane that was shot down last week, common sense should have dictated that Lana and Rusev have a period of silence and no fan would have battered an eyelid had no promo taken place last night (the Battleground PPV was already sold and Rusev would have had enough heat without it). It will be interesting to see how WWE continue the Rusev/Swagger storyline tonight. Perhaps a Lana promo will this time be interrupted before she can speak by Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger's Real Americans or maybe WWE will take a more affirmative action given this criticism and decide a cooling off period this week is in order.
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.