Русев Удря, Русев Мачка. I just noticed the original post about it turned three years old last month. That might have been the day I fell on the icy driveway, I don’t know. In other words, I was thinking about other things. Death and such–I was in quite the Bray Wyatt mood all month. But it’s a day worth noting for The Spectacle of Excess. It’s the post that got us on the IWC map. Holy cow, did it.
These four words of Bulgarian have played a pivotal role in making this website what it is, and possibly catalyzed my entire writing career. Rusev and Lana have no idea how much they gave this little blog a wind in its sails with their postmodern Cold War heel gimmicks, and inspired me personally to look more closely at the politics of professional wrestling. This lesser-hit post about a secret diss in Russian on John Cena in a letter from Putin to Lana, by the way, was a turning point for me as a wrestling theorist. This was where I realize that WWE was really sending some complex and bizarre political messages to the world, and I’m still not sure if they’re aware of what those messages actually convey.
I’ve mostly lost track of Rusev, to be honest. I’ve taken the year off WWE good and proper, and am just starting to get my bearings again. But in seeing the joy of Rusev Day on Twitter and looking at his amazing selfies, it occurs to me that Rusev is the most effective Cold War face-turn of all time. Look you guys, I don’t have time to research the other Cold War heels right now to check this, but if memory serves, the likes of Nikolai Volkoff and Vladimir Kozlov were pretty well declawed once they finally turned face. Like, that was the end of their potency. After that they were just doing Cossack dances and acting like Yakov Smirnoff and such. Rusev has managed to parley the comedic Slavic brutishness of his postmodern heel character all the way into a sort of millennial absurdist act that’s over like map. In wrestling, that’s the real win—continuing to succeed as you evolve.
Of course, with wrestling’s reach thoroughly global on the internet, Rusev was always bound to be sympathetic. Beneath the Boris & Natasha sneers and insults, he and Lana were a hard working immigrant couple who spoke uncomfortable truths about America. The rest of the world is down with that, and many read them as faces. But they certainly knew how to draw heat from America. They weren’t afraid of low blows and disrespected the fuck out of American exceptionalism. This we must admire: the Rusev & Lana story was a necessary indictment of our nation, and utterly prophetic.
Recall what Russia’s representative did to Mr. America himself two years ago:
Just saying.
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