10 Times WWE Totally Dropped The Ball On Rusev
3. Breaking Up With Lana Multiple Times
Considering how awful this angle has been with Rusev and Lana pretending to be separated, it's difficult to believe this actually hasn't been the first time WWE has broken them apart on television. In fact, it happened once before five years ago, and the result was just as disastrous.
Lana went from serving as a no-nonsense mouthpiece for The Bulgarian Brute in 2014 to his timid valet in a matter of months. Tension was teased between the two going into Rusev's WrestleMania match with John Cena, but it wasn't until Lana inadvertently cost him the United States Championship at the event that WWE started to plant the seeds for a split.
Rusev officially dumped Lana as an on-air manager in May 2015 and the feud that followed (with Summer Rae joining Rusev and Lana aligning with Dolph Ziggler) proved why they're much better together than they are apart. Similar to their current storyline, there was no actual endgame and the sole reason why they reunited was because news leaked of their real-life engagement.
WWE again experimented with them as separate entities in 2017 upon their move to SmackDown. As previously noted, Rusev found little success on his own while Lana flopped as a member of the women's division.
Despite all that, WWE remains adamant about making Lana a star without Rusev. Needless to say, it hasn't worked.