Ryback Unloads on WWE, Vince in New SI.com Interview
Sept 12, 2016 17:48:56 GMT -5
Glorydaysofwrestling and theMOESIAH like this
Post by ThugSuperstar on Sept 12, 2016 17:48:56 GMT -5
www.si.com/extra-mustard/2016/09/12/ryback-wwe-ryan-reeves-wrestling-vince-mcmahon
I came across this on Facebook before. It really is an outstanding read, and I encourage everybody to read the whole thing rather than just jump to calling him bitter, a crybaby, etc.
I have a lot of thoughts on this interview that I want to go more into later when I have the time. All I can say right now, though, is that this really does paint an ugly picture of the backstage environment in the WWE and how little respect Vince has for anybody other than Cena. The fact that they openly went out of the way to sabotage Ryback is just absurd and explains why they have had zero star power in recent years.
And Ryback wouldn't lie about stuff like this - wrestling was all he wanted to do all his life, and whether you liked the guy or disliked him in the ring, you have to respect the passion and dedication he had for making it in this business. Unfortunately, like with Punk, it was a case of the company sucking the life out of him and him no longer enjoying the business.
Ryback’s abbreviated WWE career saw him achieve great heights, but it ended as unceremoniously as you could imagine. He won the Intercontinental Championship at Elimination Chamber in May 2015, but he was out of WWE less than a year later. He spoke with SI.com about his departure, his post-WWE career and much more.
Ryback—known behind the scenes as Ryan Reeves—overcame larger-than-life challenges in the WWE ring, but was also met with immense pressure behind the curtain, especially when he was dealt a major blow by CM Punk.
“Those Punk comments did a lot of damage to me,” said Ryback, referring to Punk’s negative statements about him in November of 2014 on the Colt Cabana podcast. “CM Punk has a tremendous following. When you have as many followers as he has, and you say something about somebody, they’re going to believe everything you say. To this day, I don’t know why Punk tied me in with his whole thing against the WWE. I feel like part of it was he was his unhappiest with the company when he was working with me, and I kind of got tied into all of it.”
Although Ryback did receive support from his colleagues, like future WWE Hall of Famer Chris Jericho, he was severely disappointed that the company did not back him.
“I was always upset that the WWE never went out of its way to say, ‘That’s not true about this guy,’” said Ryback. “Guys like Jericho, who have been in the ring with me, went to bat for me, and I can’t thank them enough for that – but why couldn’t the company do that, especially when I took the hit on that? That always bothered me that they never tried to clear that up.”
EXTRA MUSTARD
A.J. Styles defeats Dean Ambrose for WWE World Championship at Backlash
Ryback was aware of the irony that his last WWE match took place at Payback, which was in Punk’s hometown of Chicago.
“It’s funny that my last match was at Payback in Chicago where I mocked Punk,” said Ryback. “I was very upset that myself and Kalisto were put on the preshow of ’Mania, which was never supposed to happen, and then again on the preshow of Payback. We were having great matches at live events, but I had no TV time the whole month before that pay per view and no build up for the match.
“So I decided I would mock Punk to get some heat from the Chicago crowd, and it worked brilliantly. I knew, at the end, Kalisto was going over – and the bigger heel I could be in the match, then the bigger the babyface will be at the end of the match once he goes over on me. After the match, they were furious with me that I was doing anything to get heat. It was so unprofessional on so many levels. I asked, ‘What do you want me to do? I’m a heel, let me go out and make the babyface in the best way I can.’ It’s ironic that Chicago was the last place I wrestled before I left the next night. Punk and I are two entirely different human beings, but I think we shared some of the same viewpoints toward the WWE as far as business.”
Ryback, who exited WWE before Raw on May 2 and officially parted ways with the company in August, is extremely busy with his own health line, motivational book, and “Conversation with The Big Guy” podcast. Ryback has also signed on with El Pollo Loco as a brand ambassador to promote their restaurants with his “Feed Me More” catchphrase, and is embracing the newfound freedom to pursue his own goals away from Vince McMahon’s WWE.
“In one of our last talks, Vince told me, ‘You’re the hardest working guy that I have here,’” said Ryback. “I just said, ‘Thank you.’ Vince said, ‘But hard work doesn’t always pay off here.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Well then, I need to go to a world where my hard work will pay off.’
“Vince has created that world, that bubble he lives in with the people he has surrounded himself with, and I need to go out and create my world. My beliefs are entirely different than his. No offense, we just didn’t see eye-to-eye business-wise, and I’m going to tell the people why. I’ve taken a lot of s--- over the years for things I had no control over. I do have control now, and I’m not going to live in fear. I know the way things work there, and if I want to talk about it, then I’m going to.”
Ryback is not afraid to speak out, and he expressed his frustration over the way McMahon booked him over the past five years.
“Vince used to say all the time, ‘I have nobody else like you,’” said Ryback. “So I’d ask him, ‘Then why do you use me like everyone else then?’ It always drove me crazy, and then he’d just laugh. That’s how he dealt with things.”
Ryback had the look and worked extremely hard to deliver in the ring, but, as he explained, there were no plans to ever elevate him to a higher spot in the company. And there was nothing he could do to change that.
“The WWE is not just run by Vince McMahon anymore,” said Ryback. “They are a publicly traded company and have shareholders. The company’s goal is to make as much money as humanly possible. I’ve said, from day one, they’ve done a phenomenal job of building up the WWE brand, but they’re very stubborn and hard headed. If you’re not in that little inner-circle of guys, it does not matter what you go out there and do. That should not be the case.”
Ryback started off red-hot with WWE in 2012, even producing successful buy rates while main-eventing consecutive pay per views with CM Punk.
“Before they booked me to lose seven pay per views in a row, I was number two in merchandise in WWE,” said Ryback. “I was beating John Cena on certain nights. I had half the amount of merchandise that he had, but would beat him in shirts, chains, and photos on some nights and be right there with him the rest. From a business standpoint, if you see a guy who is red hot and the crowd is behind him, you should be going out of your way to make merchandise and book and protect this guy because you have lightning in a bottle. But that was not the case, and instead they had to go out of their way to make me look bad.”
The culmination of that, Ryback noted, took place at WrestleMania 29 in a match against Mark Henry.
“I will never forget that day,” said Ryback. “My numbers kept climbing even though I was losing these big time matches. I was under the assumption that I was going over on Mark Henry at WrestleMania and then turning heel the next night on John Cena. When I found days before that I was not going over, but that they wanted me to fall on my face with my finish and look like an idiot, I said there was no way I was doing that. I asked, ‘Why are we doing this?’ I went to Vince and spoke with him for thirty minutes in ‘Gorilla’ [the staging area right behind the curtain] and he lied to me how this was the reason for my heel turn – that I fell on my face and tripped, I just couldn’t cut it, and that’s why I’d turn heel.
“Ultimately, though, they were just trying to run me into the ground and ruin my brand forever, and that happened time and time again. As you saw with that finish, it made zero sense from a booking standpoint to book me to fall flat on my face, and then the next night to turn me heel. The reaction to my heel turn was louder than ever, and then what did Vince do? He came to me personally and said, ‘We’re taking away all your merchandise. I want your merchandise to tank and no more ‘Feed Me More,’’ which was the thing that put me on the map. So instead of giving me an edge as a heel, you’re stripping me of everything, having Cena go over me, and then you saw how my career fell after that. I lost the momentum, and I never got it back again.”
Every wrestler in the history of the business has lobbied that they would be successful if the company simply booked them properly, but Ryback had the pay-per-view buys and merchandise numbers to back up his claim.
“Everybody wants to be pushed,” said Ryback. “My argument was that when I was used in a good capacity, I was the number two merchandise seller in the company. I could have been the number one merchandise seller had they given me all the merchandise we should have had. When I was used in a good fashion, people believed in it. A lot of it was my work and the way that I look, as well as my believability and me believing in myself, so why would you throw that away? They had a guy who can make them numbers, and the name of the game is making money, so that always frustrated me.”
Ryback—known behind the scenes as Ryan Reeves—overcame larger-than-life challenges in the WWE ring, but was also met with immense pressure behind the curtain, especially when he was dealt a major blow by CM Punk.
“Those Punk comments did a lot of damage to me,” said Ryback, referring to Punk’s negative statements about him in November of 2014 on the Colt Cabana podcast. “CM Punk has a tremendous following. When you have as many followers as he has, and you say something about somebody, they’re going to believe everything you say. To this day, I don’t know why Punk tied me in with his whole thing against the WWE. I feel like part of it was he was his unhappiest with the company when he was working with me, and I kind of got tied into all of it.”
Although Ryback did receive support from his colleagues, like future WWE Hall of Famer Chris Jericho, he was severely disappointed that the company did not back him.
“I was always upset that the WWE never went out of its way to say, ‘That’s not true about this guy,’” said Ryback. “Guys like Jericho, who have been in the ring with me, went to bat for me, and I can’t thank them enough for that – but why couldn’t the company do that, especially when I took the hit on that? That always bothered me that they never tried to clear that up.”
EXTRA MUSTARD
A.J. Styles defeats Dean Ambrose for WWE World Championship at Backlash
Ryback was aware of the irony that his last WWE match took place at Payback, which was in Punk’s hometown of Chicago.
“It’s funny that my last match was at Payback in Chicago where I mocked Punk,” said Ryback. “I was very upset that myself and Kalisto were put on the preshow of ’Mania, which was never supposed to happen, and then again on the preshow of Payback. We were having great matches at live events, but I had no TV time the whole month before that pay per view and no build up for the match.
“So I decided I would mock Punk to get some heat from the Chicago crowd, and it worked brilliantly. I knew, at the end, Kalisto was going over – and the bigger heel I could be in the match, then the bigger the babyface will be at the end of the match once he goes over on me. After the match, they were furious with me that I was doing anything to get heat. It was so unprofessional on so many levels. I asked, ‘What do you want me to do? I’m a heel, let me go out and make the babyface in the best way I can.’ It’s ironic that Chicago was the last place I wrestled before I left the next night. Punk and I are two entirely different human beings, but I think we shared some of the same viewpoints toward the WWE as far as business.”
Ryback, who exited WWE before Raw on May 2 and officially parted ways with the company in August, is extremely busy with his own health line, motivational book, and “Conversation with The Big Guy” podcast. Ryback has also signed on with El Pollo Loco as a brand ambassador to promote their restaurants with his “Feed Me More” catchphrase, and is embracing the newfound freedom to pursue his own goals away from Vince McMahon’s WWE.
“In one of our last talks, Vince told me, ‘You’re the hardest working guy that I have here,’” said Ryback. “I just said, ‘Thank you.’ Vince said, ‘But hard work doesn’t always pay off here.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Well then, I need to go to a world where my hard work will pay off.’
“Vince has created that world, that bubble he lives in with the people he has surrounded himself with, and I need to go out and create my world. My beliefs are entirely different than his. No offense, we just didn’t see eye-to-eye business-wise, and I’m going to tell the people why. I’ve taken a lot of s--- over the years for things I had no control over. I do have control now, and I’m not going to live in fear. I know the way things work there, and if I want to talk about it, then I’m going to.”
Ryback is not afraid to speak out, and he expressed his frustration over the way McMahon booked him over the past five years.
“Vince used to say all the time, ‘I have nobody else like you,’” said Ryback. “So I’d ask him, ‘Then why do you use me like everyone else then?’ It always drove me crazy, and then he’d just laugh. That’s how he dealt with things.”
Ryback had the look and worked extremely hard to deliver in the ring, but, as he explained, there were no plans to ever elevate him to a higher spot in the company. And there was nothing he could do to change that.
“The WWE is not just run by Vince McMahon anymore,” said Ryback. “They are a publicly traded company and have shareholders. The company’s goal is to make as much money as humanly possible. I’ve said, from day one, they’ve done a phenomenal job of building up the WWE brand, but they’re very stubborn and hard headed. If you’re not in that little inner-circle of guys, it does not matter what you go out there and do. That should not be the case.”
Ryback started off red-hot with WWE in 2012, even producing successful buy rates while main-eventing consecutive pay per views with CM Punk.
“Before they booked me to lose seven pay per views in a row, I was number two in merchandise in WWE,” said Ryback. “I was beating John Cena on certain nights. I had half the amount of merchandise that he had, but would beat him in shirts, chains, and photos on some nights and be right there with him the rest. From a business standpoint, if you see a guy who is red hot and the crowd is behind him, you should be going out of your way to make merchandise and book and protect this guy because you have lightning in a bottle. But that was not the case, and instead they had to go out of their way to make me look bad.”
The culmination of that, Ryback noted, took place at WrestleMania 29 in a match against Mark Henry.
“I will never forget that day,” said Ryback. “My numbers kept climbing even though I was losing these big time matches. I was under the assumption that I was going over on Mark Henry at WrestleMania and then turning heel the next night on John Cena. When I found days before that I was not going over, but that they wanted me to fall on my face with my finish and look like an idiot, I said there was no way I was doing that. I asked, ‘Why are we doing this?’ I went to Vince and spoke with him for thirty minutes in ‘Gorilla’ [the staging area right behind the curtain] and he lied to me how this was the reason for my heel turn – that I fell on my face and tripped, I just couldn’t cut it, and that’s why I’d turn heel.
“Ultimately, though, they were just trying to run me into the ground and ruin my brand forever, and that happened time and time again. As you saw with that finish, it made zero sense from a booking standpoint to book me to fall flat on my face, and then the next night to turn me heel. The reaction to my heel turn was louder than ever, and then what did Vince do? He came to me personally and said, ‘We’re taking away all your merchandise. I want your merchandise to tank and no more ‘Feed Me More,’’ which was the thing that put me on the map. So instead of giving me an edge as a heel, you’re stripping me of everything, having Cena go over me, and then you saw how my career fell after that. I lost the momentum, and I never got it back again.”
Every wrestler in the history of the business has lobbied that they would be successful if the company simply booked them properly, but Ryback had the pay-per-view buys and merchandise numbers to back up his claim.
“Everybody wants to be pushed,” said Ryback. “My argument was that when I was used in a good capacity, I was the number two merchandise seller in the company. I could have been the number one merchandise seller had they given me all the merchandise we should have had. When I was used in a good fashion, people believed in it. A lot of it was my work and the way that I look, as well as my believability and me believing in myself, so why would you throw that away? They had a guy who can make them numbers, and the name of the game is making money, so that always frustrated me.”
I came across this on Facebook before. It really is an outstanding read, and I encourage everybody to read the whole thing rather than just jump to calling him bitter, a crybaby, etc.
I have a lot of thoughts on this interview that I want to go more into later when I have the time. All I can say right now, though, is that this really does paint an ugly picture of the backstage environment in the WWE and how little respect Vince has for anybody other than Cena. The fact that they openly went out of the way to sabotage Ryback is just absurd and explains why they have had zero star power in recent years.
And Ryback wouldn't lie about stuff like this - wrestling was all he wanted to do all his life, and whether you liked the guy or disliked him in the ring, you have to respect the passion and dedication he had for making it in this business. Unfortunately, like with Punk, it was a case of the company sucking the life out of him and him no longer enjoying the business.
ed over for it.
