WWE News - Hall of Famer says released Superstar should have beaten John Cena clean
Arn Anderson believes WWE should have booked Rusev to defeat John Cena when the two Superstars fought in a Russian Chain match at Extreme Rules 2015.
One month earlier, Rusev’s year-long undefeated run was ended by Cena in a United States Championship match at WrestleMania 31.
The Extreme Rules rematch, which featured a moment where Rusev ordered Lana to go to the backstage area, ended with Cena touching all four corners of the ring to retain his title in the unique match type.
According to WWE news, Anderson, a WWE producer at the time, said on the latest episode of his ARN podcast that a Rusev victory would not only have protected the match stipulation, but it would have helped cement Cena’s status as a babyface.
“Let’s pull the plug here a little bit and let him beat Cena to a pulp and pin him, one, two, three, and he’s bleeding to death. Lana comes down and saves Cena that night. You think you’d have had a babyface face of the company the next day? That’s how easy it would have been just to tweak it.”
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John Cena vs. Rusev: What happened next?
The next WWE pay-per-view, Payback, saw the storyline come to an end when John Cena defeated Rusev in an I Quit match to retain the United States Championship.
Cena went on to feud with Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins throughout the summer of 2015, while Rusev became involved in a romance storyline with Lana, Dolph Ziggler and Summer Rae.
Five years on, it was announced last week that “The Bulgarian Brute” has been released from his WWE contract.
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