Rusev Reveals Shocking Reason WWE Didn’t Book Match With Kurt Angle

Rusev has revealed the shocking reason why WWE reportedly didn’t book him to face Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 31, something that the former United States Champion revealed that he’d been pitching for.

During a recent YouTube video, Rusev (now going by Miro) has revealed that he pitched an idea to WWE around 2014-15 that would have seen Kurt Angle return to the company to feud with him over his United States Championship:

“I wanted to wrestle him [Kurt Angle]. The first year I was with WWE, I pitched for Kurt Angle to come back. That was before the John Cena situation. I think it was before, but anyways, I wanted to bring back Kurt. The Swagger thing happened at SummerSlam and I started thinking about what I could build towards for ‘Mania. Nobody told me that I was going to work John for ‘Mania. I wanted to wrestle Kurt.

The idea was rejected by WWE higher-ups, with Rusev claiming that one person told him the company didn’t want to bring Kurt Angle back in case he died on their watch:

“I talked to two people, I’m not going to say who they are, but I talked to two people and they are really high up there. I said, ‘How about we bring back Kurt? It’s going to be great. One, he’s the greatest professional wrestler ever. Two, it’s USA coming back and I’m doing the Russian thing.’ Kurt would have been the perfect person, but they told me no. This is verbatim from the person that told me. He said, ‘We don’t want to feel responsible if he comes back and dies.’ That’s from the person that told me. There were two people there. If one says I’m lying, hopefully the other will stand up and say it’s true. In the end, he got that match with Corbin, but I always wanted to wrestle Kurt.”

WWE did eventually bring Kurt Angle back into the company in 2017 to become the Raw General Manager. He went on to have 19 matches for WWE before retiring at WrestleMania 35 in 2019 following a match with King Corbin.

While Angle and Rusev might have both been with the company between 2017-19, WWE never decided to book a match between the two. The pair were both fired as part of the mass releases back in April of this year.

Thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription.

• Rusev
• Kurt Angle
• WrestleMania
• wwe

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