10 Times WWE Totally Dropped The Ball On Rusev
7. Teaming With Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE's grand plan for Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura following their feud was... to have them team up.
It's a storyline that's been done to death over the years in WWE, but to the company's credit, it has worked with the right superstars involved. Sheamus and Cesaro, for example, ended up having as excellent of chemistry as partners as they did as opponents, but the same could not be said for the makeshift tandem of Rusev and Nakamura.
They formed an unlikely alliance out of a shared disdain for R-Truth, which effectively turned Rusev back into a heel even though he was still wildly popular. They won all of one match as a unit, against Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows, before disappearing from WWE TV all together.
They managed to make the main card at WrestleMania 35 in a Fatal 4-Way for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship but came up short. The duo was then utilized to put over new WWE champion Kofi Kingston and the rest of The New Day in the month following the event before randomly disbanding due to Rusev taking time off for undisclosed reasons.
Their split was never acknowledged on screen.
Considering they were never going to capture tag team gold, it's worth questioning why WWE bothered to halt Rusev's momentum in singles competition simply so he could be turned heel and inexplicably paired off with an equally directionless midcarder.