Rusev‘s Return to WWE Driven by Desire for Consistent Ring Time, Reveals CJ Perry
STAMFORD, CT – Rusev’s decision to leave All Elite Wrestling and return to WWE earlier this year stemmed from a desire to wrestle regularly on television, according to his wife, CJ Perry. Speaking on the “Insight with chris Van Vliet” podcast, Perry detailed the frustrations Rusev experienced during his five-year AEW tenure, particularly a period where he was absent from televised matches.
“Both him and I love telling stories, and WWE is a storytelling factory,” Perry explained. “And he is amazing at what he does. He’s the ‘Super Athlete.’ He loves playing a villain. He loves, absolutely loves WWE-style storytelling.”
Perry emphasized that Rusev’s motivation wasn’t financial. ”He wanted to wrestle every week on TV. That was a big thing for him.He loves wrestling. It wasn’t about a check for him. So it was like, yeah, maybe he made more money at AEW or something, but he wanted – it was more vital for him to get out there and be wrestling, it was realy hard for him to not be working.”
As his return to WWE, Rusev participated in the “Last Time is now” tournament to determine John Cena’s final opponent, defeating Damian Priest in the first round before being eliminated by Jey Uso in the quarterfinals. Gunther and LA Knight will compete in the tournament finals this Friday on SmackDown.
Perry also confirmed she has re-signed with WWE under a WWE Legends contract and remains available for potential television appearances.
(Please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.)
