8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Aug 22)

2. Bulgarian Walk-Out

Rusev lana
WWE.com

It’s understandable that Rusev was hurting in his match against Big Cass thanks to Roman Reigns’ assault Sunday night. He had his ribs taped up and was limping through the entire match.

But for the Bulgarian Brute to simply walk out on a match that would give him a legit shot at becoming WWE Universal Champion just didn’t make sense, especially after we saw Sami Zayn gut out a match earlier on a bad ankle (and a night after Finn Balor won the Universal Championship with a legit dislocated shoulder).

If anything, it made Rusev look like a coward. If this was a simple match with no consequences, no big deal. But instead, Rusev gave up on a title shot. How does that make him a bigger villain? Oh right, it doesn’t. It’s just lazy booking.

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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.