CJ Perry looks back on Rusev returning to WWE.
During the April 21, 2025, edition of Monday Night RAW, Rusev made his WWE return by attacking the Alpha Academy. Coming very soon after his AEW exit, it felt at various points during his All Elite Wrestling tenure that a comeback to WWE was on the cards, so it didn’t come as a major surprise when he re-surfaced on their flagship show earlier this year. Now, Rusev’s wife CJ Perry (FKA Lana) has opened up on the former TNT Champion wanting to return to WWE to wrestle their style.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Perry discussed Rusev wanting to return to WWE, noting how he loves the storytelling aspect of their presentation. Here, she also touched on his desire to wrestle every week.
“Both him and I love telling stories, and WWE is a storytelling factory. He is incredible at what he does. He’s the super athlete. He loves playing a villain. He absolutely loves WWE style storytelling. And so I think it was—and he wanted to wrestle every week on TV. That was a big thing for him. He loves wrestling. It wasn’t about a check for him. So it was like, yeah, maybe he made more money at AEW or something, but it was more important for him to get out there and be wrestling. It was really hard for him to not be working.”
-CJ Perry
Since returning to WWE, Rusev has competed in 19 broadcasted matches, including those on Monday Night RAW and on Premium Live Events. Despite not getting his hands on any gold thus far, the star has been a consistent threat in the Intercontinental Championship picture over the last few months.
Although she hasn’t appeared for WWE since inking a legends deal earlier this year, Perry has been keen to attend shows to support Rusev since his return. However, she recently revealed that the company’s roster now have to pay for tickets to their events. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Rusev and CJ Perry as soon as we hear more.
