The rumor mill can generate some preposterous ideas at times. When Rusev lost to Randy Orton at SummerSlam at lot of people thought it meant bad things for Rusev. There were stories going around saying Rusev had asked for his WWE release and his wife Lana wasn’t too happy about her current spot in the company either. When neither Rusev or Orton was featured on SmackDown Live those rumors took on a new life of their own.
Thankfully, those reports all turned out to be very false.
But the question still remains as to why Rusev was booked so weak during The Biggest Party Of The Summer. In the latest issue of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter it was explained this booking decision for SummerSlam where Rusev was put out of commission had less to do with punishing Rusev and more to do with putting Randy Orton over.
Randy Orton was coming off of two feuds in which he didn’t fair too well. Randy had just completed rivalries where he made Bray Wyatt and Jinder Mahal look very good and put them over in big ways. Therefore Orton simply needed a big win.
In fact, this decision had nothing to do with punishing Rusev because there is no reason to punish the Bulgarian Brute. There are actually plans to continue Orton and Rusev’s rivalry. The idea will be that the SummerSlam match was a fluke and the program between the two is expected to continue.
Rusev will likely get some kind of win back if WWE’s 50/50 booking system is any indication of things. So if you feel cheated because you didn’t get a full-fledged encounter between The Viper and Handsome Rusev, you’re in luck because it doesn’t look like they’ll be moving on just yet.
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