On the Road to WrestleMania 34, Rusev Day became one of the most popular acts in all of WWE and it seemed that Rusev had momentum on his side heading into the Show of Shows. Randy Orton defended the United States Championship against Rusev, Jinder Mahal and Bobby Roode at the big event and it was Mahal who walked out with the gold.
The result of the match was disappointing to some as Rusev’s fans were hoping to see him win a big match on the Grandest Stage of Them All, but instead he ended up getting pinned by Jinder.
During a recent episode of his Oh You Didn’t Know? podcast Road Dogg admitted that WWE missed an opportunity with Rusev, but noted that Jinder Mahal was booked to win because he was a project the company was working on at the time.
“My thinking here is — and this is the conversation that we had (about the U.S. Title match at WrestleMania 34), ‘If you’re not gonna put it on Rusev, how do you get the most heat with the heel that you’re trying to –’ well, we thought, you beat Rusev, you know what I mean? You have this bad guy, take it away from him and hey, wait a minute and fans nowadays are so entitled to the, oh, we didn’t get our way. You didn’t book it the way I wanted you to book it, and I get it. A lot of people wanted us to book it that way, but we didn’t.
We missed an opportunity, and I’ll take, again, credit for that. I’m not happy to take the credit but, I’ll take the heat because we missed an opportunity with Aiden English and with Rusev but, that’s in the past and I can’t go back and change it so, all I can tell you now is well, what was the crazy thinking behind it, you know what I mean? And so, that was it. We’re not putting the title on Rusev. So, who are we gonna put it on? And we knew Jinder (Mahal) was a project we were gonna work with and that’s the way things are done, that’s the way things have been done forever in this industry so yeah, it was how do you get the most heat? You beat the guy they love the most with the guy they hate the most.”
Do you think WWE should have done more with Rusev when he was on the roster? Sound off in the comments below.
H/T POST Wrestling
