7 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Extreme Rules 2016

4. Rebuilding Rusev

rusev kalisto extreme rules
WWE.com

It took some doing, but WWE finally has managed to make Rusev look dominant again. All it took was having him demolish United States Champion Kalisto and force him to tap out and take his title. Funny how that works.

The Bulgarian Brute clearly has been the best off since the League of Nations disbanded, winning matches and now capturing the U.S. title for the second time. Hes also regained regular use of his valet and fiance, Lana, who had been relegated to backstage segments and a weird feud with Brie Bella before WrestleMania.

In doing so, WWE has begun the process of rebuilding Rusev into a strong heel one who hopefully wont simply be sacrificed to John Cena in a couple weeks. Rusev is very talented and has noticeably gotten himself into even better shape, so heres hoping he fits into WWEs long-term plans.

At the very worst, at least they got the U.S. Championship off Kalisto, who had done next to nothing with it.

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Contributor
Contributor

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.