By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

The last seconds of last week's Raw were a game-changing moment for WWE fans. It told everyone that Vince McMahon believes that Ryback is the best of all babyface options they have. He might be right.

There are risks going with a musclehead like Ryback. He's green in the ring and on the mic, and limited in what he can do. Two generations, at least, of WWE fans have grow up on top acts that can work pretty well to very well, be it John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge, and even Batista. Ryback is a different type of wrestler than them.

Ryback is more along the lines of Ultimate Warrior, the Road Warriors, and of course Goldberg. So far, he's less proven than all of those acts in terms of having a defined character that fans have latched onto.

McMahon, though, instinctively believes Ryback is the type of act that can boost business. He's always on the lookout for people like him. More Eddie Guerrero, Daniel Bryan, C.M. Punk types cross his paths than Ryback types. Muscleheads were everywhere in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s thanks to the Road Warriors exploding on the scene. Ultimate Warrior & Sting were originally Rock & Flash, a Road Warrior imitation tag team. There were the Powers of Pain (Barbarian & Warlord) and Demolition (Axe & Smash) who were direct Road Warrior knockoffs. Nikita Koloff was along the same lines, too, as a singles and tag team act.

It's been a while since WWE has had this type of act. Brock Lesnar sort of was, but he had a level of finesse and pedigree that defied pushing him only as a power wrestler with big muscles. He was a big wrestler, but not a posing bodybuilder type. Batista was the closest, but when he spoke, he was clearly an intelligent, sophisticated person. Ryback is more along the lines of the grunting, snorting musclehead type. Can you imagine Batista yelling "Feed… me… more!" No way.

So in a way, Ryback is Vince McMahon introducing a modern act who is a throwback. Today's WWE fans have never seen a contemporary babyface act like Ryback. That's been reserved for clips from the past and DVDs on the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe today's fans under age 30 are itching for their own version of Goldberg, Ultimate Warrior, Nikita Koloff, and the Road Warriors.

If Ryback is up for it - and he might be, especially with a strong heel opponent like C.M. Punk who can carry him in the ring - it could be just different enough and novel enough that it'll catch on. It also could flame out because Ryback will be exposed for his limitations in the ring and on the mic very quickly.

Given WWE's limited list of options to take Cena's place during his recovery from elbow surgery, I think it's in intriguing option worth taking. With all of the TV time invested in him so far, the next logical step is for him to be tested against main event heel wrestlers. Cena's injure accelerated Ryback's rise faster than McMahon may have wanted, but Ryback is one of McMahon's favorite type of wrestlers so he will likely be fully invested in trying to make it work.

I'm not putting odds on it working or not working, but I'm intrigued to see how WWE handles Ryback, how Punk reacts to this very different type of opponent, and whether fans embrace him despite his limitations because he represents something so different than what they've seen in years.

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