Ryback recently spoke with Justin Barrasso for Sports Illustrated, talking about his WWE departure, his post-WWE career and more. You can read a few excerpts below:
Ryback comments on CM Punk’s derogatory comments about him on Colt Cabana’s podcast, and the disappointment that WWE didn’t dispute them:
“Those Punk comments did a lot of damage to me. 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.”
“I was always upset that the WWE never went out of its way to say, ‘That’s not true about this guy.’ 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.”
Ryback says he’s thankful for his time in WWE, but his departure was a business decision:
“I’ll say it time and time again: I’m thankful for my time in WWE. I love professional wrestling, I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Working hard allowed me the opportunity to showcase my talent on their platform. I have a lot of the things I have in my life because of that, so that’s never been a question. My decision to no longer work there comes down to business. Having the opportunity, hitting a home run time and time again, and not having the other end reciprocate the effort I was putting in was my issue.”
Ryback talks about start / stop pushes and bad decisions being signs that he needed to leave WWE:
“When I started doing the bullying angle as a heel Ryback, that was the first time I started getting momentum again as a heel. That was the first time that the crowd really started to boo me since my ‘Feed Me More’ transition. What did they do there? Rather than follow through with it, they pulled me out because Paul Heyman needed a guy. They needed a guy to put with Heyman because his time with Curtis Axel had run its course, and they needed a guy for two or three months to keep him busy with Punk until Brock was ready to come back. So they threw me back in there with Punk for no other reason than to put Punk over again, and that ended the bullying gimmick.
“Then I had to start all over again, and I did with Axel—and I loved my time with Axel. But none of our work was seen on TV. We didn’t even get a televised entrance. Most of the time, they’d only use our backstage work on the dot com. I had to take some time off for a groin injury, and I came back when guys were hurt and they needed a babyface. It was a situation of circumstance, and they brought me back as a babyface in San Antonio. The reception that crowd gave me is something I’ll never forget. Then the Survivor Series came, and they built me up as this red hot free agent where no one knew what team I was going to go on, Team Cena or The Authority. I go with Cena’s team, and what do they do with me? Eliminate me first from my team in the match, which made me look like a piece of s—. No one believed I was a big time free agent any more. They never went out of their way to protect me, and when that happens year after year, I knew I needed to get out of there before any damage was done. They went out of their way to run me into the ground. I couldn’t stay there anymore.
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Ryback says his Intercontinental Championship win at Elimation Chamber 2015 remains a career highlight:
“The match itself was nothing to write home about. If you remember, Mark Henry’s pod broke open, which threw off the entire match. A lot of things had to be changed on the fly, and it’s one thing when there are two guys in the ring and you can communicate and adjust, but there were six guys in the Elimination Chamber. It was all-out chaos trying to communicate with that many people when things were horribly wrong with the pod breaking open.
“I got the 1-2-3 over Sheamus, and I’ll never forget the crowd’s reaction. I said to myself, ‘Holy s—, that match was horrible, but no one cared,’ which was very special for me. It was a really cool moment, especially with Daniel Bryan there, who is one of my good friends. That, I’ll never forget. There were a lot of guys waiting for me at ‘Gorilla’ clapping, and that meant more to me than anything else. Those are the guys who see your effort day in and day out, and that moment with those guys was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was very touched by the moment.”
Ryback says this title run was a negotiating tactic, and promos suffered because people worked in fear of Vince McMahon:
“They gave me the title just so I would re-sign a contract. That is not uncommon and they do things like that all the time. Outside of live events where I was able to get a microphone and say whatever I wanted, which always worked well, I didn’t enjoy my title run because I hated reading the WWE promos.
“The promos were atrocious during my whole last run. I delivered them exactly as I was supposed to deliver them, but the writing was so out of touch. I remember Jericho went up to me and asked, ‘Who’s writing this?’ And I said, ‘Vince. I’ve tried to get it changed but he wants me reading it word for word.’ Vince wanted me to read his promos word for word, and I never enjoyed that and I never will.”
“The problem with these writers who work for Vince is that they’re scared. Everyone is scared. I used to tell Vince that all the time. I’ve told him, ‘You have all these people who are scared around you. They can’t truly do their job. They’re always going to play it safe and nobody is going to take chances.’ That’s why you see these promos with guys, week in and week out, playing it safe, staying within the guidelines, keeping the sponsors happy, and keeping it PG. They don’t want to take a chance with anybody saying anything that could create controversy, and that’s why you see the product the way it is today.”
Ryback addresses rumors of him signing a deal with another promotion, including rumors of him going to work for New Japan:
“I’m at a point where I’ve done very well for myself financially and I’m very thankful that I don’t have to sign a contract with just anyone. Right now, I just have so much going on. I’m booked from October to January, including a nine-day UK tour. I’m going to get my fix of wrestling and do what I love to do. Until I have a full team in place to help me with my supplement company and Feed Me More, I need to be home more days than I’m gone.”
