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SAN ANTONIO, TX — Rusev & Aiden English walked a long, hard road to get to the doorstop of a SmackDown Tag Team Title reign. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts on WWE Hell in a Cell Kickoff, it’s not Rusev Day yet.
The blue brand’s Tag Team gold will remain instead around the swiveling waists of The New Day, the three-ain’t-enough-they-need-five-time Tag Team Champions, who weathered an all-but-perfect effort from the challengers that came down to a handful of missed opportunities and miscommunication. As the title bout began to go long after a pair of mismatches (Rusev vs. Kofi Kingston and then English vs. Big E) canceled each other out, the action came so fast and furious that any game plan Rusev Day had seemed to go out the window, and the challengers opted to improvise.
For a while, it paid dividends. But The Drama King’s two big gambits fell short, which led to a final breakdown between him and Rusev at the moment of truth. After English’s idea for consecutive top-rope attacks caused Rusev to take himself out with a whiffed diving headbutt, The Artiste attempted his version of an Accolade on Kofi, but The Dreadlocked Dynamo narrowly writhed free. Rusev went into panic mode and rushed the ring, only to be tossed out by Kofi into the waiting clutches of Big E. New Day’s resident big man grabbed hold of Rusev and held his right leg, leaving The Lion of Bulgaria helpless as English staggered face-first into a match-ending Trouble in Paradise.