At one point, Rusev Day was one of the most popular acts on WWE programming, but fans never got to the the team officially turn face.
Matt Rehwoldt, formerly known as WWE star Aiden English, recently spoke with Sportskeeda’s Dr. Chris Featherstone on UnSKripted, and he looked back on the missed opportunity for a Rusev Day face turn. English explained how he believed the team was at the point where the fans were so behind them that they could have easily made the switch.
“[There were ] not serious talks [about it], which was too bad,” said English. “Here’s the thing, there’s a lot of people out there who, the minute they get a pop on something, go, ‘I’m gonna be the next big babyface world champion.’ The minute a big city on TV pops for them, they go, ‘Let’s do it.’ And I don’t agree with that. And sometimes people, if you give it to them too hard too fast, we’ve seen it with other people, then people turn on it.
” But I thought, and I think a lot of other people did, it did kind of reach a little bit of a critical mass point. And then even leading into WrestleMania, with Rusev going for the US Title, right around there, I’m like, you could have easily, and we talked with New Day about this a lot, they were the same thing. They were heels and they kind of stayed there for a little bit, but at one point, the audience, it was just too much, you had to do the flip. I’m like, I think we’re there.”
English then described how he thought Rusev Day, like the New Day, could have turned face and kept everything that made the act popular the same. But he stated that he believes Vince McMahon was set on having Rusev as a powerful heel, so he didn’t want to use “The Bulgarian Brute” as a babyface.
“I’m like, we could still be the same Rusev Day, the entrances, Miro could be who he is, I could be who I am, we just kind of move to the other side of the ring,” said English. “And beat me up and have Miro run a comeback and it’s essentially the same thing. So yeah, unfortunately I think the bossman saw, especially Miro as he’s the big foreign brute heel, which he’s very good at, but I think that was just stuck in the boss’s mind unfortunately.”
The failure to capitalize on the fans’ positive response wasn’t Rusev Day’s only downfall; English described how he believes the controversial “One Night in Milwaukee” storyline with Lana was “bush league”, and it was a far cry from the heated feud that the Rusev Day breakup could have produced.
“It was just a bad idea, it was just crummy storytelling,” said English. “I’m like you have all this meat on the vine. If you really wanted to split us up, which we didn’t want to do anyway, I’m like fine. But you have all this meat on the vine of just okay, I can be mad at her for splitting us up maybe and be jealous, be all this stuff and just make it this really personal.
“Be like hey, make it about Rusev day and her taking him away from me and breaking up a great team. As opposed to this tawdry, like D-movie level soap opera. [It was] real bush league. And it lasted two weeks, like okay great. We could make this a real personal feud, like old-school wrestling, tag team breaks up over a woman. Like, this could be freaking good stuff, and then it all has to be a cheesy gimmick. And we fought against it, but there was just nothing, again, boss’s mind was settled, and it was what it was.”
The full video is available here:
