WWE star Rusev spoke with Shakiel Mahjouri of CBS Sports about his match against Jey Uso at a WWE Supershow in Japan.
Rusev said, “I had to light a fire behind him because I wanted to go, man. I told him, ‘I’m going so hard, and I’m not going to apologize, because I had a period of time where I’d have one match, not knowing when the next match is coming.’ That’s a very scary situation. Now we have this hot crowd in Japan. Let’s freaking go! Let’s give it 150%.”
On how he developed his Redeemer character:
“You go out in the wild, in the dark, in the abyss, and have to figure everything out for yourself. You don’t have the producers or the creative team… I dug deep inside myself to find out who I am and what I wanted to stand for. From there, we started developing ‘The Redeemer’ character.”
On nearly getting fired by WWE after returning from a torn ACL injury from 2011:
“Again, I was pushed against the wall with nowhere else to go. I remember that very vividly… After having that meeting about, ‘You have this much time left here,’ I once again went back and started revisiting my character. What could I do better? If you ask something of me, I’ll deliver.”
