Former WWE Star Recalls Vince McMahon Saying ‘No-One Is Bigger Than WWE’ Following Sudden Storyline Ending

WWE

Former WWE star Summer Rae was a part of the WWE main roster from 2013 until her release in 2017 after over a year on the shelf with injuries.

During her run, one of her more notable roles was during the feud with Dolph Ziggler, Lana and Rusev in the Summer of 2015, where Lana and Rusev had broken up, with Lana and Ziggler getting together while Rusev and Summer were together.

The feud is still remembered by WWE fans today, though it was cut to an abrupt ending when Rusev and Lana announced their real-life engagement in the middle of the storyline.

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Summer discussed the storyline, and it’s abrupt ending following Lana and Rusev’s engagement being leaked to TMZ.

She said:

“The Rusev, Lana, Dolph storyline was cool because it actually seems really organic like bringing in Dolph, you know, like having us do that. We all really enjoyed working with each other when it first started happening, me Single White Femaling her like pretending to be her and stuff like that was good. But yeah, when it definitely broke down, Lana got injured. I can’t remember on what and she was still learning how to wrestle at the time. Like she hadn’t wrestled much on the main roster so I was trying to teach her things as well as we’re going along.

“When the TMZ storyline got mysteriously leaked to TMZ, no one cared. We aren’t Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, you know. That really set Vince off and like everyone, because, I don’t know why, but we were like the favorite storyline of him. It was crazy. I think at the time, Cena had a storyline for four months and we were going on three, so it just wasn’t something you were seeing like how they do nowadays, like amazing, long storylines. The storytelling in WWE right now is just really coming around so differently. It was interesting that we were getting crossover position, like great, you know, positions. So when I went there, he was really upset. I think the head writers at the time were really upset too because they had just been so invested in it. I think the fans aren’t dumb like to know that there was never a payoff, like we never had a payoff match. Lana and I never went back and forth. We never had the doubles match, so clearly something went wrong in the storyline.

“So when the Rusev Lana storyline blew up in our faces, we were in Chicago. I lived in Chicago for seven years, big Bears fan, so people knew that. Usually I would get pretty solid reactions even if I was on Main Event or something. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird. I’m over.’

“We found out that day. I think they called me into the office. I don’t even think it was Vince. I think the head writers called me and they were like, ‘Hey, it’s on TMZ. No one’s bigger than WWE.’ That’s a big thing for Vince and Cena would always talk about that, like, no one’s bigger than WWE and they don’t want you to think that either. So like, ‘Oh, you want to go to TMZ and say you guys are married, and that kind of ruins our storyline’, which in my opinion, I don’t think it did ruin it. It’s kayfabe. But, ‘You want to do that? Well, watch this. It’s over. You’re breaking up with him today. Do you want to write your own promo?’ I’m like, ‘What? They’re like, ‘Okay, great. We’re gonna put you together with a writer. You guys can go out and write it.’

“I was pissed, like, I was so mad. I was like, God, we just did all this. There’s no payoff. Like, what do I do? I’m on the European tour with them. Like, now am I kicked off the European tour? That’s $15-20,000. Like, I’m just not going on tour. So the whole thing, I was like so mad.

“Jimmy Jacobs and I sat in the United Center, in the arena. Jimmy Jacobs was like, not obviously new to wrestling, but I think he was like, newer at WWE. He was like, ‘Okay, we got to write this.’ I just sat there and I really told him everything. I love writing promos. I love it. Like, I want to write things for other people. I have this whole idea of watching Jungle Boy turn the other day, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna DM him and tell him this idea.’ Like, I have these ideas pouring out of me. So we wrote the promo and I think he went and got it approved. Right before, I was hot, like I was pissed and right before we went out, Rusev came up to me and he was like, ‘I don’t like this line. I don’t think we should do this line’ and I said, ‘Okay, well, I don’t like that this just happens, so this is what’s happening.’ I think it (the line) was about him not having balls or something like that. I don’t remember if I said that you’re a little bitch, but he said, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’”

transcription via WrestlingNews.co

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• summer rae
• Rusev
• Lana
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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