10 Burning Questions For WWE Raw (Oct 3)

In 2015, Rusev was a dominant heel who had built up a yearlong undefeated streak. He walked into WrestleMania as United States Champion and left without it. Fast-forward a couple months and he had been soundly defeated in a feud with John Cena and needed a full year to recover.

After rebuilding the Bulgarian Brute into a dominant heel U.S. champ again this year, WWE decided to once again sacrifice him to the company’s golden boy, this time being Roman Reigns at Clash of Champions. And then Monday, Reigns got the upper hand on Rusev once again.

With their title rematch ending in a double countout, Rusev used a chair to drop Roman and batter him. But just like that, Reigns turned things around and leveled Rusev with a spear, which the Bulgarian sold like he had been hit by a truck (consider that Roman was beaten at ringside, waffled with a chair and then recovered to hit one move that Rusev than sold for four times as long).

So now, will Rusev recover a little of his standing, or will Roman continue to boost himself at the Bulgarian’s expense. Here’s hoping that regardless of whether Reigns is en route to a lengthy U.S. title run, the work rebuilding Rusev into a convincing heel isn’t lost in the process.