Almost a decade ago, Ryback was a major player in WWE’s main event scene. Thing’s didn’t quite work out for the heavy hitter and in 2015, he left the company. Nowadays, Ryback is still doing a little bit of independent wrestling along with his Feed Me More Nutrition project.
The Ring Report caught up with Ryback who discussed possibly going to AEW, and more. Below are some highlights:
Ryback on the wear and tear on his body:
“It was really bad. Things didn’t go as planned for me because when I left, I was in pain for probably the last two years [in WWE] with my back. Everyone has back pain and I just assumed it was due to traveling and hotels and riding in rental cars and airplanes all the time. I always chalked it up to being a muscular thing when in reality it was a disc compression ordeal from doing the Backpack Stunner for over ten years. I was doing the move on live events regularly with 200lb plus guys on my back so it’s like when you’re taking the ass bump on the Stone Cold Stunner but you have the extra guy’s weight on your back as well. I was told early on by William Regal that I probably shouldn’t do that move on a regular basis because it was going to end up hurting me and it just never did but I didn’t end up doing it on a regular basis for a while. I kind of just forgot about it and before I knew it, when I came back as Ryback, it was just a move that I was doing as it was different. Nobody was doing that in WWE, and it was my finisher when I was Skip Sheffield, but the move took its toll on me.
Essentially, my discs were completely worn thin and the back pain was just adding up and getting to be too much and anybody that’s ever had back pain can attest to this; it starts changing the way you think a little bit in the fact that it’s not fun being in pain all the time and I always dealt with pain fairly well as it was one of those things. But then, I just couldn’t take it anymore. And when I left, I was frustrated over numerous things, but how hurt I was was the reason why those other things became more important to me and it was a combination of a lot of things of me wanting to let my contract run out but being met negatively and being threatened essentially where I just said, ‘Okay, I’m taking control of my future in my own hands.’ I walked away on my own accord. I thought my body would have gotten better leaving and I got a nose surgery and my ear fixed. I could never breathe through my nose my entire career from having a broken nose my first year and I couldn’t hear out of my left eardrum from getting my eardrum broken my first year in Deep South Wrestling. So when I left while I was still under contract, I got those fixed.”
Ryback talks about meeting Vince McMahon’s mother and brother in Texas:
“I will say that the one funny story was when I was at a Gold’s Gym in Houston, Texas, and Vince McMahon’s mom, I believe, lives there. There was this guy at the gym and he comes up to me and he tells me that he’s Vince McMahon’s brother and I don’t believe him at first. The guy says his name is Rod McMahon and he’s telling me some wrestling stories. So, initially, he comes off as kind of a crazy wrestling fan telling stories at the gym because it was very random and it was outside of the tanning beds waiting to go tan and it was very odd timing and everything. He was extremely nice and then I’m looking at him as he’s talking and I see the resemblance to Vince in his face, particularly in the nose region, and Vince has a very distinguishable nose when you talk to him, and I’m looking at him and go, ‘Oh man, I think this guy’s telling the truth.’ And so I have this great discussion with the guy. Super nice, Rod McMahon, and I go back to TV in Houston and this is during the Rybaxel period. I call this the punishment period, and I see Vince and we start having a discussion in the hallway and I go, ‘I met your brother Rod McMahon today’ and he goes ‘Did you? Oh, yeah!’ and I go ‘I can see the resemblance’ and no joke, he got red in the face and was furious with me that I said that I could see the resemblance. ‘I look nothing like Rod!’ That’s the discussion and I go ‘Jesus Christ, how did this go bad?’ And then, later on, Vince comes and gets me and goes, ‘I would like you to meet my mother.’
Mind you, I don’t know who else he did this with and if he did it at any other points. It was just me, though, and he takes me and brings me into a room with his mother, shuts the door and it’s just me and his mother and I don’t know if there were other people in there but there were no other wrestlers and I was in there for way longer than I expected because, you know, you meet somebody ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ and you kind of just have a little casual talk. Well, she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh, my son’s going live for a very long time’ and smiles at me. It was one of those really funny, odd moments that you don’t really understand what’s going on at the time but it’s pretty funny looking back at it and then Vince eventually came in and they all talked and then I was allowed to leave. That’s my one unique Vince story.”
To read the full interview, click HERE.
