#3 Lana needs to be paired back with Rusev
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She tried her best, but Lana clearly hasn’t gotten herself into a position to be taken seriously as a singles star. Her match with Naomi this week for the Smackdown Women’s Championship was pretty appalling. When your opponent kicks out of your finishing move, the bookers of the match normally allow you to kick out of your opponent’s finishing move at least once, otherwise, the whole thing just looks far too one-sided, and this is what happened with this bout.
Maybe that is the story they are telling, but if so, who is that benefitting? Lana cannot be expected to build a character based on not being a good enough wrestler, can she? Eva Marie tried that for a while at the start of last year, but it soon wore pretty thin. Lana has more about her than Eva, especially on the mic, but it just doesn’t appear as though she has much of a future with her current gimmick.
One thing Smackdown could do is pair her back up with Rusev, who is due to make his return fairly soon. It looks like the WWE might have pretty big plans in store for the returning Bulgarian Brute, and as popular as his return will surely be, we all know his best days were when he and Lana used to march down to the ring together and belittle the US audiences, singing the praises of President Putin.
With Russia back in the news at the moment, especially with their potential involvement in the Trump Presidential victory last year, surely this would be a great time to go back to the pro-Russia gimmick, rather than trying to make the two of them stars in their own right.
Perhaps Lana will prove me wrong over the next few weeks and months, but with a stacked women’s division on Smackdown, it feels like this rivalry with Naomi is just filling time until Carmella cashes in her Money in the Bank briefcase.
