Ever since he burst onto the scene as a singles competitor in April last year, the rise and rise of Rusev has been one of the WWE's biggest success stories of the last 12 months.
The WWE has taken a slow-burner approach to building Rusev—as opposed to pushing him too highly, too quickly, as we've seen with countless other stars in the past
That has ultimately paid off, as we're now seeing a Rusev who is getting progressively stronger as the weeks go on. If this momentum carries on, we could be looking at the next big main eventer in the WWE. Above all else, that would be a triumph for the development line of NXT, where Rusev honed his craft before jumping up to the main roster.
Yet while his gimmick—and his manager, Lana—all help to build a strong character, Rusev had previously felt stifled as a heel by a lack of unclean victories. Squash victories are to be expected from time to time if we're seeing the progression of an unstoppable force, but if we want to believe Rusev is a top heel, he has to play dirty on occasions too.
Therefore, his victory against John Cena at WWE Fastlane seemed like a real step forward for Rusev's relationship—or lack of, perhaps—with WWE audiences.
It's important for any heel to build up a level of hatred with the crowd, and that often comes by ducking and diving your way out of trouble—cheating, essentially. If there's one man who is a perfect example of how to do that, then it's another graduate of NXT, Seth Rollins.
Rollins' feud with Dean Ambrose towards the latter part of last year was a perfect indicator of how to generate heat. He avoided fighting Ambrose for weeks and weeks, often running out of the arena to avoid his foe and getting plenty of heat for it.
When he did compete, he often found sneaky, manipulative ways to win, which has led to the permanent on-screen return of Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury. If you've got guys standing at ringside acting as your allies, then they may as well get involved and help pile the heat on you as a heel.
Up until Fastlane, we'd seen very little of that indeed from Rusev and Lana. Therefore, having The Ravishing Russian make her way into the ring just as it looked like Rusev would be beaten to interfere in the match is classic heel stuff—it's the stuff that has created the bad guy persona in wrestling for decades, in fact.
That obviously enabled Rusev to avoid being defeated and eventually pick up the win himself in controversial circumstances.
Rusev's crowd interaction the following night on Raw seemed as spiky and as negative as it had been for some time. If we're supposed to be seeing the emergence of a major heel, this is absolutely perfect for his development.
It's hard for a wrestling crowd to really hate a guy if he's just beating opponent after opponent with sheer technical superiority. They have to have a reason to hate the guy—and stealing a win from the No. 1 guy in the entire company is a pretty good starting point.
It almost feels as if Rusev should have been doing this much sooner. Unclean victories are part of the framework for any heel in professional wrestling, and if Rusev can add that string to his particular bow, then the sky is literally the limit.
Of course, the immediate stumbling block to all this would be how Rusev deals with a (likely) first defeat to Cena at WWE WrestleMania 31. If he can get past that hurdle with his momentum still intact, then we could be looking at a future WWE world heavyweight champion.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1BzFjAy
via IFTTT February 26, 2015 at 04:04AM
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