11 Reasons WWE Battleground 2017 Was Absolutely Terrible

5. Welcome Back, Rusev

Rusev John Cena Battleground
WWE.com

The list of talent that WWE is misusing is long, to say the least. Somewhere near the top of that list resides a Bulgarian Brute. Why is WWE so unwilling to do anything interesting with Rusev? The guy is a beast. He is as credible as they come in the ring, a true super athlete, and he has the charisma and personality to back it all up.

Rusev's recent injury gave WWE the lowest hanging fruit imaginable. The Bulgarian took some time off TV, and could have come back as a hot heel or even as a brand new babyface, a role he is yet to play but clearly could make work. WWE could have brought Rusev back to challenge his former tag team partner Jinder, or he could have slipped into the US Championship mix with AJ and KO, two fresh opponents for him.

The options were plenty, yet WWE made the laziest decision possible - put Rusev against John Cena in a feud based on nationalism. Did we not finish this in 2015? Did we not realise that having Cena end Rusev's streak at WrestleMania 31 should have been the end? Rusev entered that match on a tank - why are we still caring about flags in 2017?

Rusev is going to go down in history as one of WWE's biggest missed opportunities. Any fans holding out hope that WWE will do something constructive with the man need to wake up.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.