When 2015 began, Rusev and Lana were in the midst of a reign of terror over the WWE midcard. The Bulgarian Brute had defeated everyone a step below the main event and was poised to make a splash at a higher level. Obviously, Rusev was going to have to lose a match at some point, but what has transpired during the first half of 2015 has not been something to remember. After defeating John Cena to defend the United States Championship at WWE Fastlane, Rusev went on to lose three straight PPV matches to Cena, including the title at WrestleMania XXXI. He also lost Lana as his valet (to Dolph Ziggler) and injured his foot, putting him on the shelf for more than a month. He went from an unstoppable foreign monster to a forlorn man pining for one blonde (Lana) while he had another (Summer Rae) on his arm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72dBUg-rov4 Although that awful romantic storyline ended and Rusev regained Lana, he ended 2015 in a considerably worse spot than where he was when it started. Hes part of a mid-card stable, the League of Nations, losing more often than not while lacking any real direction. Its sad to see this happen to such a promising star, and hopefully he can recapture some of his momentum from a year ago.
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.
