During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Rusev explained why he left AEW and returned to WWE in 2025:
“I wanted to wrestle. I wanted to mix it up with the best. I know that the roster is stacked. I don’t remember the last time it was this stacked, but I just want to mix it with everybody.
I wanted to wrestle more and more, and all these European tours and everything. I love all that, I love the grind. Because when we first started, we were five days on the road, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, you go home Wednesday, you’re out on the road again on Friday.
That’s just how life was, as hard as it was, that’s how you get better, just by putting in the work. Because every day you work different towns, you travel.
Now the people can only hear about that and be like, Oh, really, that’s what it was. It was so cool.
Wrestling, getting beaten up, getting the rental car driving three hours to the next town, getting the hotel, waking up, working out, doing the same thing, makes you feel like a real professional wrestler. I missed the grind.”
When asked if he thought he’d return to WWE one day when he got released in 2020, Rusev said:
“Only if I wanted to. I got fired. It sucks, right? Nobody wants to get fired, especially in the pandemic. But I jumped right away, I started doing the Twitch thing, because I had the three months no compete and jump on Twitch. I had fun on Twitch. I was making money. I was playing video games. I was having fun. I was gaining my audience, little by little, and that was fun.
And then AEW came through, and I started wrestling there. The same thing. I just wanted a short contract, just to feel them out. Everything was great, signed a bigger contract.
Then did I ever think I was going to come back to WWE? If I wanted to. I really meant that if I wanted to. If I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to come back, but I love WWE.
I love what they’ve made for me, and I love how they’ve taught me since I was a young kid. And I just love the organization.”
