Rusev Looks Back On Rocky Start To WWE Career Before Finding His Identity

Before he became one of WWE's most trusted heel characters during the mid-2010s, Rusev's path to the main roster was initially halted after first signing with the company at the beginning of the decade. During a recent appearance on "Identity Crisis" with CJ Perry, his real-life wife and former WWE star, Rusev shared that he suffered a major injury during his early days with the promotion, but luckily his career skyrocketed once he was healthy.

"Rikishi got me a tryout at 2010 SummerSlam in Los Angeles and they liked me, they signed me, they gave me a contract," he explained. "All of a sudden, I find myself in developmental WWE, green as grass. I had no idea. And then started I broke my knee, broke my neck. That set me back a little bit. But then in developmental I spent like a year and a half probably at most and then made it to the to the main roster. So my career really fast kind of like took off."

Rusev continued by outlining his difficulty with building his WWE persona, explaining that he turned to his favorite pop culture icons from the 1980s to help him create "The Bulgarian Brute."

"It's so hard to find the identity because that's also another challenge is, when you go to developmental, it's like, hey who you are? And you're like, I'm Miro from Bulgaria. I came to be a professional wrestler. But that doesn't work out for anybody, brother. You need to find something more entertaining right? You need to find that character that's going to draw these people, the eyes, the money ... that took me a while," he said. "I started going watching all my favorite bad guys from like Kickboxer, Blood Sport from the 80s and all these. That's how I started drawing inspiration for my character."

After reflecting on the early stages of his WWE career, Rusev advised that newer professional wrestlers should focus on using their true personality outside of the ring and amplify it by 1000 to discover their character, rather than trying to create something that they're not. The 39-year-old also admitted that he could be legitimately mean and nasty if he wanted to be, and would focus on incorporating those emotions into his on-screen persona instead of pretending to be a character that doesn't align with him.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "CJ Perry" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.