CJ Perry talks about the end of Rusev Day in WWE.
For a brief time in WWE, every day was Rusev Day. A random line from a promo where Rusev referenced Columbus Day after defeating Randy Orton because he was incensed that Christopher Columbus had a day when he never beat anybody, Rusev day became very popular with fans and would become the adopted name for the trio of Rusev, Aiden English, and Lana.
The group was consistently getting babyface reactions even though Rusev remained a heel in WWE and eventually, the group would be separated after it was revealed that Aiden English hit on Lana when they were alone in a hotel room. Ultimately, Rusev and Lana would end up splitting up on television as well with Lana getting married to Bobby Lashley in storyline.
Speaking about the end of the popular Rusev Day, CJ "Lana" Perry says that at the end of the day, it came down to Vince McMahon preferring "The Bulgarian Brute" as a vicious villain, despite the favorable crowd reaction.
"I feel that Vince had an idea of how he wanted — the simplest way of putting it for all the listeners that might not be as familiar with wrestling is Vince McMahon was the director, the Steven Spielberg of our show," Lana tells Baby Huey on In the Kliq. "Just like any television show, or movie, there's casting and it comes down to the executive, the network, to the showrunner, and if they want to cast you as a villain, you know, that's their choice. I think at the end of the day, Vince loves Miro as a villain. So that was really the bottom line of the struggle is, he wanted him to be his Bulgarian 300-pound crazy villain. I mean, it was his company, still is, and that was his creative vision. I think that was always the conflict of it."
These days, Miro is a member of the All Elite Wrestling roster and he is currently still portrayed as a villain, the vengeful Redeemer. Occasionally on television, Miro even references his wife, despite their in-character split on WWE programming.
CJ Perry has mentioned that she would be open to being paired with her husband on AEW TV provided that the storyline makes sense. Learn more here.
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