[Mind-numbed Robot]

"What brought me down was the rules....." Laboy said.

Should was be were?

Yes. I was going to point that out but decided to read all replies first. That is very basic grammar not teacher kind of stuff.

[Principled]

"What brought me down was the rules....." Laboy said.

Should was be were?

Well, no. The subject of the sentence is the singular pronoun what. It does sound odd though.

It's like the correctly grammared sentence, "None of us speaks English well."

[King Prout]

Actually, had he phrased his comment both correctly AND honestly, it would have read "What brought me down was my failure to know and follow the rules..."

[B-Chan]

“What brought me down was the rules.....” Laboy said. Should “was” be “were”?

Yes. I was going to point that out but decided to read all replies first. That is very basic grammar not teacher kind of stuff.

Instead of fretting over verb tenses, I'd simply rewrite the sentence: instead of “What brought me down was the rules.....” I'd say “The rules brought me down”. I'm a big fan of simple and straightforward English.