Throughout the fall, one of the few bright spots with WWE was that it was continuing to smartly book Rusev as a dominant foreign heel. He was moving up the food chain and captured the perfect title for his character, the U.S. Championship. Similarly, Ryback re-debuted earlier this fall and began running through jobbers and lower-level talent. Surprisingly, he began to get a good reaction from the crowd again, despite the horrid booking before his injury. He looked like he might experience a mini-resurgence. Then Survivor Series happened and both got sucked into the Cena versus the Authority storyline. Although both were highly sought after wrestlers, neither did much in the match and thus saw their momentum grind to a halt. This was evident at TLC, where both fought in unremarkable matches largely to silence. The crowd could barely manage to chant U.S.A! during Rusevs match, which has to be troubling considering that even Heath Slater and Zach Ryder have gotten those supportive chants.
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.
