10 Ways WWE Screwed Up At Money In The Bank 2017
8. Wherefore Art Thou, Rusev?
Rusev hasn’t been seen on live WWE television for several months now, but it looked like the company were building something for him at Money In The Bank. Shortly after joining SmackDown through the Superstar Shake-Up, ‘The Bulgarian Brute’ partook in a series of vignettes demanding a title shot before the pay-per-view, stating that there’d be dire consequences if his requests were denied or ignored.
The videos stopped airing as Jinder Mahal rose to prominence, and Rusev hasn’t been seen since. His wife, meanwhile, has entered the Women’s Title picture, and received the biggest in-ring opportunity of her career at MITB, while Jinder Mahal, his last significant rival, was defending his WWE Championship against Randy Orton.
Each of these angles gave WWE the opportunity to reintroduce one of their most talented all-round performers, but they missed the boat. Both the company and Rusev look foolish for totally dropping the post-Shake-Up storyline without resolution, and while we’ll likely see ‘The Bulgarian Brute’ sooner rather than later, this is but another case of WWE taking the audience for fools, and actively expecting them to forget about things that happened a couple of months ago.