Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of ‘Fantasy Fight Friday’, SLTD Wrestling’s one stop shop for professional wrestling’s most intriguing dream matches. Don’t worry if you didn’t get a chance to vote for a winner over the last few weeks, you can still do so right now! Those polls won’t be closing any time soon.
This week, we’re looking at two of the most powerful international stars over the last decade in professional wrestling, two hard-hitting, once barefoot fighters with impressive undefeated streaks under their belts, before both being toppled by John Cena. Today, we at SLTD Wrestling put ‘The Samoan Bulldozer’, Umaga and ‘The Bulgarian Brute’, Rusev face-to-face in an unprecedented dream match.
In one corner, you have the late Umaga, a member of the legendary Anoa’i family, which also features well-known wrestling personalities such as Peter Maivia, Rocky Johnson, The Rock, Rikishi, The Usos and Roman Reigns to name just a few. Formerly known as Jamal, as a member of 3-Minute Warning, Umaga burst onto the scene in 2006 under the management of Armando Alejandro Estrada, as an unstoppable behemoth, who utilised his massive frame to overpower his opponents in the ring.
With the aid of a devastating finisher, a wrapped thumb to the throat called ‘The Samoan Spike’, he bulldozed through everyone in his path to amass an impressive undefeated streak of about eight months.
While he was unsuccessful in his attempts to win the WWE Championship, suffering his first pinfall loss in the WWE from John Cena, he earned the Intercontinental Championship from Jeff Hardy shortly after, and went on to represent Mr. McMahon against Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania 23. He had a reasonably successful career in the mid-card before his unfortunate departure in 2009, and untimely death at 36 in December of the same year.
In the other corner, you have Rusev, WWE’s resident Bulgarian mauler, who gave us a glimpse at his power in the 2014 Royal Rumble match before making his official main roster debut the following April, with ‘The Ravishing Russian’, Lana by his side. He demolished the likes of R-Truth, Xavier Woods, Big E and Jack Swagger, and won the United States Championship from Sheamus that November.
He then entered a long-running rivalry with John Cena shortly after the 2015 Royal Rumble match, and even defeated the man at Fastlane. Despite losing the championship to Cena at WrestleMania, Rusev proved himself as a worthy competitor having faced Cena at four consecutive Pay-Per-Views and putting on a decent showing.
Rusev now finds himself in a rivalry against his former manager Lana, and Dolph Ziggler. He’s recently been highly regarded for his matches with Cesaro and Kevin Owens while Ziggler is away filming a movie for WWE.
It goes without saying that these men wouldn’t pull any punches, and would indeed leave it all in the ring if they were to ever face off. So who wins in this match? Author of ‘Under the Spotlight’, Adam O’Brien gives his thoughts:
“These two guys would destroy each other. They’re both similar in stature, and usually go into their matches with a firm advantage over their opponents thanks to their size. Staring across the ring at something equally as intimidating would definitely light a fire under both of these guys and motivate them to pull out all the stops.
As for who wins, I have to go with Umaga on this one. Rusev is an incredibly tough individual, but I feel like Umaga would be able to withstand more punishment. Due to his infatuation with Lana and now Summer Rae, Rusev shows that there are more important things to him than competition, and his rivalry with John Cena serves as proof that the man is easily distracted when one of them gets in the way of a victory over his opponent. I feel like Umaga is a dude that really just wants to annihilate the competition, and I have to give him the edge here.
Not only that, but despite his kicks often resulting in victory, Rusev normally relies on his ‘Accolade’ submission manoeuvre to put his opponents away. Umaga doesn’t strike me as a man that will tap out, no matter how much pain is inflicted on him. He’d have this in the bag with a swift Samoan Spike to put Rusev out for the count.”
So there you have it, folks. Now we turn the question to you, the SLTD Wrestling community. Who do YOU think would win between Rusev and Umaga? Leave your vote down below and see what your fellow fans think the result would be, and don’t forget to comment on why you chose the person you did! Thanks for reading, everyone!
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