10 Times WWE Completely Abandoned Their Talent

4. Rusev

Dean Ambrose EC3
WWE.com

It was during a Ricochet promo on the February 10th edition of Monday Night Raw that loud "Rusev Day" chants echoed throughout the building from a fanbase acutely aware of just how little they were set to get of 'The Bulgarian Brute' on the show.

This is not the first time his name's been used to try and fail to hijack a show, nor the first time it's failed. The fans fought and won once in the 2010s, and the "YES!" movement that helped steer Daniel Bryan back towards the WrestleMania XXX main event was borne out of a special kind of stubbornness no longer harboured by the current generation of fans.

More's the pity too - the kickstarting and cold-dropping of yet another Rusev push is tantamount to workplace bullying at this point. He's given just enough agency in a major to get over but gets more over than he was supposed to and is thus buried in the back-end as a result.

Streetwise veteran Tazz once commented that his Royal Rumble 2000 pop was too loud for his own good amongst a host of ultra-competitive colleagues. Rusev's pops aren't rattling his peers, just the paid professionals that can't be a*sed to push him.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett