During his near five-year run under the All Elite Wrestling banner, Rusev (as Miro) wrestled a mere three dozen times, with his last match taking place at Worlds End In December 2023. Across the wrestling world, rumors suggested that his inactivity could be attributed to a refusal to lose matches. According to Rusev himself, however, that is far from being the case.

“There’s a lot of rumors out there, but the problem is those rumors are spread by one person, by these dirt sheets, and they have no evidence, no proof,” Rusev told “SHAK Wrestling.” “They just can go out there, run a story and nothing can be traced back to them. ‘Oh, I heard. I saw.’ Clearly if you judge this by this run, obviously, it doesn’t make any sense. Clearly, when I lost to Sammy Guevara the [TNT] title, that didn’t make any sense. When I lost to Daniel Bryan right after that, that didn’t make any sense. When I lost to whoever, let the people go back and review whatever I’ve done and we talk about that, but also losing now, it’s just part of the business. Not everybody just wins every week.”

As Rusev alluded to, he took notable losses to Sammy Guevara and Bryan Danielson. In Guevara’s case, he dethroned Rusev as TNT Champion on “AEW Dynamite” in September 2021. Two months later, Danielson defeated Rusev in the finals of the AEW World Championship eliminator tournament via referee’s decision. Another loss came at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2022, when PAC conquered Rusev, Malakai Black, and Clark Connors in a four-way to determine the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Champion. Through his remaining eight in-ring outings in AEW after that, Rusev stayed undefeated.

In February 2025, he and AEW mutually parted ways. By April, Rusev officially returned to WWE, where he is a former United States Champion.

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