Lana And Rusev Were Apparently Dropped From "Total Divas" Because They Were Hated By E!'s Demo

As previously noted, Rusev & Lana were recent guests on Lilian Garcia's Chasing Glory podcast. In the second part of the interview, Lana took some time during the discussion to recount the moment when she found out that she and Rusev would no longer be a part of the Total Divas cast. Lana says that certain E! Network executives made the decision based off of a poll that showed how little Lana & Rusev were liked on the show.

"When I first was told [that we would no longer be on Total Divas], Kevin Dunn is so great, and we were basically told that we were a shoo-in and that we were incredible on this season," Lana said. "I was told that he loved me, that Murray, which is the production company who produces the show, loves me, WWE loves me, WWE loves us, that we should be working on our spin-off show. So that was like, oh, we're doing it. And then, apparently, they had a meeting with the E [Network] executives, and there's a whole bunch of new E! executives now, and when Kevin Dunn told me that E! Executives took a poll and we are strongly disliked by the E! demographic. They do not like us, and that, basically, I'm hated, we're hated, and the E! executives thought our stories were very slapstick. They were a strong no. The executives were a strong no. I was shocked."

Lana believes that part of the reason people never became fans of the couple on Total Divas was because of the edits done to the final cuts of each episode. Lana explained that the editors would sometimes even rearrange phrases and re-purpose them in different conversations.

"A lot of stuff has to do with edit, too," Lana said. "There's so many things in edit that I was royally screwed over, and they could take someone saying something from this scene and put it there. In edit, they can do whatever they want and that's out of your control. If they want to make me look more annoying, if I need to play that annoying girl, they'll do that. There are some things that I got really mad about. But, ya know, I understand that that's what I signed up for, and I also understand that when you sign up for reality TV, you have to be ready to not be perfect. That's fine, but don't screw me over when you go, oh, all of a sudden you're not liked, and it's because your editors are doing that. Literally, there would be times where they put different phrases and put them here, and I was like, 'That wasn't even the situation!' Or, like, the huge fight with Paige. That was edited like, whoa, not really what happened."

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