10 WWE Castoffs Who Are Killing It In AEW

2. Miro

Malakai Black
AEW

Few wrestlers have showed more skill and talent and been more popular with fans before being released than the former Rusev. While a lot of the others on this list were “over” with fans, Rusev managed to elicit strong reactions despite WWE’s best efforts to keep him down.

Released in April 2020 along with what seems like half the roster, Miro showed up in AEW in September 2020 as a babyface known as the Kip Sabian’s best man. This provided an opportunity for Miro to show his personality, which was often stifled in WWE. Upon turning heel, we got to see the killer fans got to know in his early WWE days, but with a twist: Miro wasn’t a generic foreign heel with a mouthpiece talking for him. He was just a brutal villain who dubbed himself The Redeemer and God’s Favorite Champion.

That persona has been tweaked slightly since Miro lost the TNT Championship, as he seems to be feuding with God him/herself in his promos. But Miro still remains one of AEW’s best assets that hasn’t been fully tapped, and a far cry from the guy who WWE actively tried to tamp down when “Rusev Day” got over with fans.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.