Over the past few months WWE has gone out of its way to sign many of its wrestlers to lucrative, new multi-year contracts in an effort to prevent them from leaving the company and wrestling elsewhere. But, as he pointed out on Twitter on Monday, Rusev isn’t one of them. The former United States Champion responded to a fan online who said he had made a mistake by re-signing, saying he could be a bigger star in either All Elite Wrestling or New Japan Pro Wrestling. Rusev responded by saying whoever is reporting he has re-signed with the company is incorrect.
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“Who said I’ve re signed !?!?” Rusev wrote.
Who said I’ve re signed !?!? https://t.co/on23dYI6O0
— Rusev (@RusevBUL) November 17, 2019
After failing to capture the SmackDown Tag Team Championships alongside Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania 35, Rusev and Lana both took a hiatus from the company that lasted throughout most of the summer (minus a one-off appearance in Saudi Arabia). When he returned to television, Rusev was quickly inserted into a storyline involving Lana cheating on him with Bobby Lashley. Though the angle has been widely panned on social media, Rusev has firmly defended it in interviews.
“It’s great,” Rusev said in a recent interview with The Sun. “I think we are in the best storyline currently going on and the best storyline that’s been around for years. It’s getting a lot of views and a lot of eyes on it. Some people like it, some people love it, but at the end of the day, it’s the hottest storyline going on.
“It’s a collaboration,” he added. “There’s adjustments that we make [outside of kayfabe], but that’s just life. We’re committed to our characters on TV, so we just have to make slight adjustments, but we’re professionals and we’re coping with it.”
Though he discussed his frustration with WWE Creative in an interview with Lilian Garcia earlier in the year, Rusev said in the same interview with The Sun that he’s no longer solely focused on trying to become a top star in the company.
“My goal is to be healthy, that’s my first-and-foremost,” Rusev said. “It doesn’t matter about storylines or things like that. One day you ride a tank but the next day, you do nothing but main event dark matches so it’s a big wave, you just gotta ride the wave and do the best with anything that is given to you.
“You gotta enjoy everything you do, and you gotta control what you can control because some things you can’t, and there’s no point being mad so whatever I can control, I do, and if not, I’m just having a blast with it,” he added.
