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The current story line involving Rusev and Lana may be dropped after tonight's Battleground pay-per-view.
In recent months, Rusev had adopted the nationality of his manager Lana. Rusev would wave the Russian flag to incite fans, while Lana would cut promos praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the WWE will stop mentioning Putin and will play down the references to Russia from Raw tomorrow night.
This is not a spoiler as the original plan for Rusev's match against Jack Swagger at Battleground remains unchanged.
The change was decided after Malaysian Airline's passenger flight MH17 was shot down over East Ukraine. It is currently unknown if this was a terrorist attack or a military strike. However, the Russian government has prevented any outside investigations into the incident.
This does not mean that either Rusev or Lana will be taken off television. This could happen, but it is not expected.
This is not the first time that a story line has been dropped because of a terrorist attack. In 2005, the WWE had two-other Anti-American characters in Muhammed Hassan and Khosrow Daivari. During a SmackDown taping in England, several masked men aided Hassan by attacking the Undertaker. At one point, one masked man tried to "behead" the Undertaker, and the masked men carried the fallen Daivari out of the arena like a martyr. Unknown to anyone in the arena, London was subject to a major bomb attack at the same time. The segment was never shown on British television.
The WWE was pressured into removing the Muhammad Hassan character from their programming. Hassan was written off within the same month, and was due to be completely repackaged. However, Mark Copani left the WWE and took a break from wrestling which lasted a few years. After 2 final matches, he retired. Shawn Davari would continue to play into the Arabian half of his heritage for his somewhat successful career.
There has been no complaints about the current Rusev story line, so it is unlikely that either he or Lana would be repackaged or taken off television.
In recent months, Rusev had adopted the nationality of his manager Lana. Rusev would wave the Russian flag to incite fans, while Lana would cut promos praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the WWE will stop mentioning Putin and will play down the references to Russia from Raw tomorrow night.
This is not a spoiler as the original plan for Rusev's match against Jack Swagger at Battleground remains unchanged.
The change was decided after Malaysian Airline's passenger flight MH17 was shot down over East Ukraine. It is currently unknown if this was a terrorist attack or a military strike. However, the Russian government has prevented any outside investigations into the incident.
This does not mean that either Rusev or Lana will be taken off television. This could happen, but it is not expected.
This is not the first time that a story line has been dropped because of a terrorist attack. In 2005, the WWE had two-other Anti-American characters in Muhammed Hassan and Khosrow Daivari. During a SmackDown taping in England, several masked men aided Hassan by attacking the Undertaker. At one point, one masked man tried to "behead" the Undertaker, and the masked men carried the fallen Daivari out of the arena like a martyr. Unknown to anyone in the arena, London was subject to a major bomb attack at the same time. The segment was never shown on British television.
The WWE was pressured into removing the Muhammad Hassan character from their programming. Hassan was written off within the same month, and was due to be completely repackaged. However, Mark Copani left the WWE and took a break from wrestling which lasted a few years. After 2 final matches, he retired. Shawn Davari would continue to play into the Arabian half of his heritage for his somewhat successful career.
There has been no complaints about the current Rusev story line, so it is unlikely that either he or Lana would be repackaged or taken off television.