Lana on Rusev’s AEW departure: ‘He wanted to wrestle every week on TV’
On a new episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Lana opened up a bit about her husband Rusev’s departure from AEW and return to WWE.
Rusev (Miro) spent nearly five years under AEW contract before his departure from the company this February. Toward the end of his run, he was off television for a considerable amount of time amid rumors that he was reluctant to lose matches. Tony Khan recently explained that he and Rusev had different visions of what they wanted, but he wished Rusev the best now that he’s back with WWE.
Lana explained on Insight that she does not like to speak for her husband too much because it creates controversy and goes viral on social media whenever she does. But she said the period where Rusev was off AEW TV was “really hard” for him given that he wants to wrestle every week. Rusev also loves the style of storytelling that WWE does.
“Both him and I love telling stories, and WWE is a storytelling factory. And he is incredible at what he does. He’s the ‘Super Athlete.’ He loves playing a villain. He loves, absolutely loves WWE-style storytelling,” Lana said. “And so I think it was — and he wanted to wrestle every week on TV. That was a big thing for him. He loves wrestling. It wasn’t about a check for him. So it was like, yeah, maybe he made more money at AEW or something, but he wanted — it was more important for him to get out there and be wrestling, it was really hard for him to not be working.”
Rusev was part of WWE’s Last Time is Now tournament to determine John Cena’s final opponent, defeating Damian Priest in the first round before losing to Jey Uso in the quarterfinals. The tournament is down to Gunther and LA Knight with those two set to face off on SmackDown this Friday.
Along with Rusev’s return, Lana — who also was previously with AEW — has signed a WWE Legends contract. She has not popped back up on WWE TV yet but is always ready for the opportunity if it arises.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.