Rusev is one of the most popular WWE Superstars on the current roster. In fact, the fans love him so much that he has become one of the top merchandise sellers at live events and on WWEShop.com.
So, it’s baffling to think that he was originally scheduled to be in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the WrestleMania Kickoff show instead of being in a featured match on the main card.
Plans changed and he was added to the United States Championship match with Jinder Mahal, Randy Orton and Bobby Roode. It turns out that there might be more to the story on why he was moved.
Dave Meltzer reported last week that Rusev was moved to the U.S. title match
because of his strong merchandise sales but, reports attributed to
PWInsider state that there was talk that he had asked for his release.
I have reached out to people in WWE to get further confirmation on this story but apparently, he was unhappy with how he was being used and that is when WWE made the decision to move him into the U.S. title match.