Ever since the brand split came into effect, there was genuine excitement towards SmackDown LIVE as WWE had fans believe it could finally compete with Monday Night RAW.

While fans were understandably sceptical about that – as WWE has always gone to great lengths to ensure the red brand remains the A show – they’ve done a fantastic job of having the Tuesday night show not only compete with RAW, but perhaps it’s beaten it too in terms of entertainment.

RUSEV

One of the more exciting moves which flew under the radar during the recent superstar shake-up saw Rusev move to SmackDown LIVE and he had a pretty big demand right off the bat.

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He claimed he wants a WWE Championship match at the Money in the Bank event later this month, and would ‘go home’ if things didn’t go his way.

It looks like he’ll be staying at home at this rate as the WWE Championship match has already been confirmed, as have the Money in the Bank participants and The Bulgarian Brute is nowhere to be seen.

He hasn’t returned on television; he hasn’t addressed the situation and he hasn’t come face to face with SmackDown commissioner Shane McMahon either, and a new report from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has explained just why he isn’t back on our screens right now.

The source is claiming that the original plan was to have Rusev return on SmackDown and then battle Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank.

CHANGE OF PLANS

As we know, Orton dropped the gold to Jinder Mahal at Payback and their rematch has been confirmed and that means Rusev is now out of the equation.

With WWE changing their mind on the storyline ideas, the company simply has nothing for him right now so he’s taking a backseat until an interesting storyline emerges.

Right now, it’s unclear whether the writers will somehow manage to include Rusev in the Money in the Bank ladder match, as Kevin Owens was the latest inclusion and WWE can still add one more name to it if they want.

Baron Corbin is the early favourite to be winning that match, as the villains usually make better winners of that match and the inclusion of Rusev would certainly put him in that bracket as well.

Even though he hasn’t debuted on the show yet, it is billed as the land of opportunity and you’d assume that if he was to achieve success anywhere, it’ll be on SmackDown.

Looks like The Maharaja’s instant success is bad news for Rusev.

What do you make of WWE’s reason for keeping Rusev off television? Have YOUR say in the comments section below and the third episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here! Check it out via this link. https://soundcloud.com/user-818579649/gms-wwe-podcast-all-the-fallout-from-wwe-payback

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