Rusev recently spoke with Farbod Esnaashari for ESPN.com; you can read a few highlights below:
Rusev comments on the surprising success of ‘Rusev Day’:
“I had no idea this was going to happen. This was supposed to be a one-time ‘Rusev Day’ thing. I never thought in a million years it was going to be what it is today. It was something we planned to do, but just for one day. But it just caught on fire ever since then. Nobody expected that.”
“I’ve just been enjoying it. I’ve been booed out of the building for the past four years. So finally the people now appreciate me. But I’m just having fun, I’m just doing me. Every bad guy or good guy, we all enjoy the crowd reaction, so I’m just going with it.”
Rusev talks about this being the most fun he’s had in his WWE career:
“By far it’s the most fun I’ve had in my career. I mean, I loved WrestleMania 31 with the tank — that was amazing, of course. But now I’m showing everybody that you don’t have to be stuck being a foreigner bad guy. Being a foreigner bad guy doesn’t have to be my destiny, and I can be much more than that.”
Rusev says he wants to be remembered as the one who broke the stereotype of the foreign heel:
“[The experience] has been a lot of long years, with a lot of obstacles along the way. But as long as I kept focus with my goal, nothing could stop me until I achieved it. You work hard, and the hard work pays off.”
“When you look back at foreign wrestlers 20 years from now, you’ll remember I wasn’t like them. I want to be remembered as the guy who broke that mold for other foreign wrestlers.”
