6 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Hell In A Cell 2017

4. Rusev Flounders Again

Rusev Randy Orton
WWE.com

Seriously, did Rusev make a pass at Stephanie McMahon or something?

The Bulgarian Brute is by all accounts a complete athlete. Far from being a typical foreign heel, Rusev is athletic in the ring, is competent on the mic and has meshed well with nearly every opponent he’s faced. And yet, he’s lost 70% of his televised matches this year and has lost all five PPV matches he’s had.

Granted, Randy Orton is one of the biggest names in WWE, but let’s face it: babyface Orton is bland and boring. Sure, fans cheer for him, but is anyone truly clamoring for a mega-face run for him in 2017? The most interesting Orton has been in recent memory is when he joined the Wyatt Family – and not because he turned on them as part of a “master plan” and won the WWE Championship.

Rusev could have used a big win Sunday night to give himself some momentum. Even a win with a little help from Aiden English would have worked. But losing clean to an RKO after losing at SummerSlam in mere seconds was just shoveling dirt on him.

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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.