WWE needs to make up their minds about Rusev. Is he an unstoppable monster who will make his way to the top of the card? Or is he destined for midcard greatness and currently is serving as a vehicle to remake Jack Swagger? Rusev technically won by countout at Battleground, presumably as a means to stretch the battle between Russia and America for at least one more PPV while keeping him undefeated. But for Rusev to be on his heels for half of the 10-minute match with Jack Swagger, it was the wrong play. Swagger is a guy who has been treated like a jobber to the stars for the past year. Whenever the Real Americans lost a tag match, it was Swagger looking up at the lights. Suddenly, Swagger stands up for America, and he is able to repel a Bulgarian Brute who recently has bulldozed former IC champ Big E and former WWE and ECW champ Rob Van Dam. If WWE is bent on finally building up Swagger properly after years of half-hearted pushes, then thats fine. But if hes going to be jobbing to Kofi Kingston and Bo Dallas in a month, then there was no reason that Rusev shouldnt have won convincingly. Having him win by countout and then beat him up after the bell wasnt productive.
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.
