Ex-WWE Star “P*ssed” After Storyline Scrapped
One former WWE star was left unhappy after a storyline had to be suddenly abandoned.
Rusev and Lana had been a firm partnership both in front of the camera and behind the scenes in WWE when they burst onto the main roster in 2014. On WWE TV, the partnership began to show signs of strain after Rusev lost his US Title to John Cena at WrestleMania 31 and a split became inevitable.
Over the summer the split played out on WWE television with Dolph Ziggler becoming Lana’s new love interest while Rusev found a new partner in Summer Rae. The story rumbled on for months but was stopped in its tracks when TMZ reported that Rusev and Lana had become engaged in real life. WWE abandoned the storyline leading to reports that there was significant heat on both Rusev and Lana and by the end of November the two were paired up on-screen again.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on the Insight podcast, Summer Rae gave her thoughts on the situation and says she was left very angry with the way the whole thing was handled:
“So when the Rusev Lana storyline blew up in our faces. We’re in Chicago and I lived in Chicago for seven years, big Bears fan. So people knew that. And usually, I would get pretty solid reactions even if I was on Main Event or something. I was like, oh, that’s weird I’m over.
“We found out that day, I think they called me into the office. I don’t even think it was Vince. I think the head writers called me and they were like, hey, it’s on TMZ no one’s bigger than WWE. That’s a big thing for Vince was like, and Cena would always talk about that, like, no one’s bigger than WWE and they don’t want you to think that either.
“So like, oh, you want to go to TMZ and say you guys are married? Well, that kind of ruins our storyline, which in my opinion, I don’t think it did ruin it, it’s kayfabe, it’s day one. But yeah, like you want to do that? Well, watch this. It’s over. You’re breaking up with him today. Do you want to write your own promo? And I’m like, what? And they’re like, okay, great. We’re gonna put you together with a writer. You guys can go out and like write it. Because I was p*ssed, like, I was so mad.”
WWE’s decision cost Summer Rae thousands of dollars
As a result of WWE deciding to scrap the storyline, Summer Rae says she was taken off the European tour where she’d have been working with Rusev and Lana, and that cost her a lot of money:
“I was like, God, we just did all this. There’s no payoff. Like, what do I do? I’m on the European tour with them. Like, now am I kicked off the European tour, that’s $15-20,000. Like, I’m just not going on tour. So the whole thing I was so mad.
“So Jimmy Jacobs and I sat in at the United States are in the arena. And Jimmy Jacobs was like, not obviously new to wrestling, but I think he was like, newer at WWE. And so he was like, okay, we got to write this. And I just sat there. And I really told him everything. I love writing promos. I love it. And so we wrote the promo. And I think he went and got it approved.
“Right before – and I was hot, I was p*ssed – and right before we went out Rusev came up to me and he was like, I don’t like this line, I don’t think we should do this line. And I said, ‘Okay, well, I don’t like that this just happens. So this is what’s happening.'”
Of the four people involved in the storyline, only Dolph Ziggler remains in WWE with Rusev now better known as Miro in AEW.
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