Arriving as Kip Sabian’s “Best Man,” Miro was poised to be an impact player in AEW, and booked as such (at least at first; and at least on the now-defunct “AEW Dark”), rolling through impenetrable stalwarts like Sonny Kiss and Fuego del Sol, which at least led to a TNT Championship opportunity against Darby Allin, in which the former Rusev prevailed. That title reign would halt on an episode of “Dynamite” in September of 2021, yielding to a worthy Sammy Guevara, who parlayed that into a three-month reign, including multiple interactions with both Cody and Dustin Rhodes, and perhaps the pinnacle of Cody’s AEW run, an all-timer of a ladder match at “Dynamite: Beach Break in 2022.”

Energy transfer aside, from there, Miro’s AEW run was a whole lot of nothing, with him disappearing for months at a time, direction unknown, and minimal updates of any fashion, up until the point where he finally left the company following a victory over fellow WWE-also-ran Andrade El Idolo at Worlds End 2023. It would be a little over four months before anyone would see “The Bulgarian Brute” again, whence he returned to WWE as Rusev, competing against Otis on an episode of “Raw” in March of 2025. As of now, the once-and-again Rusev has been entrenched with the likes of Sheamus, Sami Zayn, Penta, JD McDonagh and others, with a trajectory in WWE that seems far more promising than anything he touched during an AEW run that was inarguably less-than.