On the most recent edition of “Conversation with The Big Guy”, which you can listen to in full at this link, former WWE star Ryback vented his frustrations against WWE for their involvement with Tyson Kidd’s injury among other topics. Below are a few of the highlights from the podcast:
On His Recent Match Against Brian Cage:
You just need stories. I read Bob Backlund’s book, and stories, I’m telling you is the one thing that you need: stories. You don’t need all this other stuff. It’s just machine vs machine, just two guys from beginning to end to kill each other. We didn’t have a long time to plan anything out more elaborate. In my head, it was the T1000 vs the T100, classic Terminator vs New Terminator, and just go out there and that’s the story, have the finish and the crowd got it, and like, there’s a lot of things that I feel out of it not wrestling every week, but everybody got it.
On Getting Food Poisoning On the Road:
I was craving Vitamin Water Zero, and I was starving. In Jersey, it’s not like Vegas where there’s food on every corner and Bars & Grills on every corner. Back East, the choices seem few and far between. I found a gas station, I just want Vitamin Water Zero so bad, and I went in there thinking that I know I was going to get hungry if I go in and drink a shake and try to go to bed. I needed a few more calories so I ended up getting a bag of those baked Lays chips. I will usually get a bag of those after a match–the baked ones because they are low in fat. I got a chicken salad sandwich, and I know a lot of people are going to go ‘from a gas station.’ Vince and I actually had a conversation about this. I think I went in there before when we were talking about wanting to get me out of the singlets; he wanted me out of the singlets and wanted me in trunks because Vince is a big leg guy. We got into a whole conversation where we talked about random things, and I think I mentioned it once before where his suitcase is filled with supplement pills. I thought they were important documents—and perhaps sometimes he does, but it’s his bag of pills and he has them in like a $10,000 VKM customary made. We had conversations before about weights and things like that, about backs, but there was one time we talked about gas station sandwiches, and he was like, ‘Hunter and I always joke about gas station sandwiches, such s**t!’ He was so offended by the gas station sandwich. I think subconsciously I knew it would piss him off, but the sandwich was in a nice display, but you had to open up the refrigerated display and there were only two choices: chicken salad sandwich and ham salad sandwiches. I’ve never seen a ham salad sandwich so I go, oh that is a really bad choice, but I wish I really would have taken that now, but the chicken salad sandwich—which tasted totally fine, but I get in my car and eat everything, drink Vitamin Water Zero, get to the hotel and have my shake and get ready for bed. We haven’t talked about it before but I have sleep apnea, it’s something we will discuss on another podcast, but one time when I wore my CPAP machine—which is used for sleep apnea, I knew I didn’t feel great. On the road, when you work 4-5 days a week, you’re kind of hardened up to that lifestyle where you get immune to be sick. It recognized early on that I didn’t feel good, and I was so tired, I said to myself that I will wake up, throw up and be fine. I fell asleep and digested the sandwich. It was the worst night of my life. I was really sick and felt like I lost 12 pounds that night, it was just a really bad night.
Getting John Cena Drunk During a Bowling Game:
It was me, John Cena, R-Truth and Santino Marella. This bowling alley had a bar and bowling lanes. We’re up all day working, going to appearances, meeting all the troops and ships and seeing all the cool things. We decided to have fans watch us have a two on two bowling game. I think it was me and R-Truth vs Santino and Cena were the teams. We did the drinking game where the loser had to take a shot, along with the drinks that we were drinking. I was messed up at the end of it, and couple of funny notes from this; this was when I was red hot with the merchandise—Cena had made a smart remark about it towards me. We were just dudes bowling and having fun being drunk. I remember that I said something along the lines of ‘enjoy being number one in merchandise because soon you are going to be number two a**hole.’ He did not appreciate that, and I just laughed so hard. He was so sensitive towards the whole thing. I don’t remember who saw him—I want to say it was Ted Dibiase saw him later that night, because Cena has been known to put down a tremendous amount of alcohol, and he was a mess. He was stripping at the bowling alley, and doing some really dumb s**t. Dibiase comes up to me and said, ‘you were the one he was drinking with?’ I said, yeah, me, Santino and Truth. He goes, ‘I’ve never seen him drunker.’ I felt so proud of myself that I was not that bad compared to what he was doing because you always hear how much he can drink. They beat us too; we were doing shots for the losers, probably of whiskey, and I just remember that they beat us in both games and it wasn’t bad, but I drank a lot more than them. R-Truth was messed up too. He can also drink a bit and was a lot of fun.
On Tyson Kidd’s Injury:
I told Tyson Kidd that it was so great to see him again, and we were joking about talents where we said that if any of these certain talents had broken their necks, which I won’t name the talents, but if they had broken their necks they would be well over 500 pounds. He looks better than ever, and I told him that he is still in better shape than 90% of the roster. Huge bicep veins, yet with a broken neck and his wrestling career is over but remains so optimistic and positive throughout the entire process. Don’t get me wrong—I am sure he has moaned and complained and cried, who has every right to do that. If he was doing that 24/7 nobody would knock him, but he is not doing that, he is out and talking to the guys and I forget that there is anything wrong with him. It sucks, people don’t understand and will not go into great detail about this—but WWE should make sure 100% that he is taken care of the rest of his life, and I mean, well beyond taken care of, that they should bend over backwards for him because this guy loved wrestling on another level, and what they took away from him, and by the way, for them to take as long as they did to apologize, I’m going to personally say it right here on the podcast, F**k you Vince, and F*** you Kevin [Dunn] for not being men and apologizing to this human and Vince [McMahon] you are a F***ing piece of s**t, and will say it right here for everything you did that night to create that night and should hate yourself everytime you look in the mirror for putting him in that situation. This will not be edited out either. There is no excuses for it, they should be shut down for it. Tyson Kidd is a great human being who has given them everything. I hope to God Mark Carrano is fired for the stupid decision that he made that night. That is personally one thing—mainly because I hate the guy so much, for being such a piece of s*** that I would like to see Mark Carrano gone over this whole thing at the end of the day. I will get mad for him without saying too much and is a great human being. If people know his situation, and is not my place to say anything, but it makes me so angry, because everything I went through with my ankle, and I don’t think Vince knows anything that went on with my ankle, and I didn’t get one single apology for anything, and in Tyson’s situation, it’s a million times worse because he can never wrestle again, and it just makes me so angry at the negligence and the stupidity that exists at that level there. It’s not to say mistakes won’t happen from time to time, but they put WWE on such a big pedestal and makes me so angry, and I will be the first to admit that they have so much power, somebody needs to say it because someone needs to say it.
