Contractual Purity: Averted. Lana did some nude scenes and photo shoots back in her modelling and acting days, but doesn't appear to have suffered any known backlash for them.
Corpsing: After Nia Jax's infamous "my hole!" reaction in a Tables match, Lana could be seen grinning and mouthing "oh my God" at the whole thing.
Creator's Favorite: The storyline between Lana, Rusev, Dolph Ziggler and Summer Rae was apparently Vince's favorite on TV at the time. Years later, Summer Rae described it in an interview as "Vince's baby".
Vince McMahon apparently convinced himself the "Rusev Day" thing was a joke, and Rusev was ordered not to play to the crowd when they chanted it. They even put his segments earlier on the show in the hopes the chants would go away. When Rusev countered that his merchandise had sold out, Vince tried to claim they simply didn't make enough of it (and whose fault is that?).
WWE management were furious when Rusev opted to cut his long hair, and getting choke slammed multiple times by Big Show was apparently a punishment for doing it without asking.
Fake Russian: Lana is billed as being from Moscow, but is actually American-born with Portuguese and Venezuelan heritage. She did live in Latvia for years both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union, moving back when she was seventeen, explaining her fluency in Russian and not making it quite as strange as it could have been.
Real Life Writes the Plot: The breakup storyline was suddenly scrapped when their real-life engagement ended up all over TMZ, with a WWE.com article citing that they both realized they'd brought the best out of one another and Rusev, still in love with her all along, proposed to her.
Romance on the Set: They had been dating for awhile in real life before finally tying the knot in July 2016. They separated in Winter 2023 but they remain friends.
Star-Derailing Role: The 2015 storyline in which he split up with Lana and replaced her with Summer Rae appears to have been what derailed a promising bit of momentum. There was a shot at Career Resurrection with his face turn and 'Rusev Day' getting over - but Executive Meddling saw him being used less and less in an attempt to kill the cheering.
In Rusev's initial character down in FCW, he was managed by Raquel Diaz (Eddie Guerrero's daughter Shaul). Repeated injuries meant he had to take time off and, by the time he returned, FCW had been rebranded into NXT.
In mid-2015 Lana was white hot after her split from Rusev, paired onscreen with Ensemble Dark HorseDolph Ziggler, and was even teasing a breakout from her valet role into an in-ring performer. (Note that this was about the same time the 'Divas Revolution' was happening, with the simultaneous promotions of Becky Lynch, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks.) Then, in her first onscreen brawl (with Summer Rae), she broke her hand. This not only shelved her for several months, but created an awkward situation when she and Rusev - or, rather, their respective performers - got engaged during her time off.) WWE had to cop to the engagement, integrate it into storyline, which busted up the respective onscreen couples of Rusev/Summer Rae and Lana/Ziggler, and may (because Ziggler needed another rival and Summer needed another love interest) have had a hand in introducing Tyler Breeze to the main roster earlier than anyone was expecting.
After his 2020 release - and shortly before he showed up in AEW as 'Miro' - Rusev revealed that he'd previously asked for his release three years earlier but wasn't granted.
