Rusev Day is no longer the happiest day of the year.
In the summer of 2017, Rusev Day was created by Rusev and Aiden English following Rusev's victory over Randy Orton. Rusev Day caught on like wildfire and quickly became one of the favorite rallying cries of the WWE Universe. Many thought the chant would lead to a big push for the Bulgarian Brute, but aside from a short United States Title reign at the end of 2018, Rusev has mainly floundered on SmackDown.
Speaking to Lilian Garcia on Chasing Glory, Rusev vented about the misfires of Rusev Day.
"When Rusev Day started, I thought it was my time," said Rusev. "I keep pushing for it to be my time. It's very frustrating. As frustrating as it is, I try to get better. I don't know what is holding me back, to be honest. We tried to push it a year too late. Nobody cares about it anymore."
Lana jumped in at this point, discussing how Rusev Day was born and Aiden's role in the group and helping get the chant over.
"The Rusev Day thing, Aiden English had a big part in it. I said this before it ever happened -- we would ride in the car and I love talking about ideas," said Lana. "This was when we were in the program with Roman Reigns. We did the split and the Dolph thing, which we thought was a great story. Then we came back together and had an incredible run with Roman. (Rusev) even says that was the height of him being confident as a heel. We weren't pushing the Russian thing as much. It had its run and you have to evolve. I said, 'We have to find a singy-songy thing that the crowd can boo and eventually it will turn into a baby(face) thing. That's when he came up with 'Lana is the best, Lana number one.' That was a year-and-a-half before Mixed Match Challenge."
Lana continued, "Then he got paired with Aiden and he sang Rusev Day and within a couple of weeks, all of Europe started chanting it during the European tour. I knew it was going to catch fire. I already knew he was going to turn babyface because people see how funny he is. It just took something like Aiden singing Rusev Day for it to spark the fire. Once (Aiden) was gone, it's just not the same."
Rusev elaborated on Rusev Day losing momentum once Aiden was removed from the pairing.
"They had different visions. We fought and fought and fought," explained Rusev. "If it aint broke, there's nothing to fix. I just watched the WWE 24: WrestleMania special. The whole weekend, the months before and after were all about Rusev Day and people singing. Top selling merchandise and everything."
Lana went on to say that Vince McMahon prefers Rusev to be a heel, which is why WWE didn't want to get behind Rusev Day at first.
In the same interview, Rusev vented about trying to catch the eye of McMahon, but nothing works. You can view his comments here.
