SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Ryback spoke to Busted Open radio about what he’s doing now, whether he’ll get into MMA, and what storyline he presented to Vince McMahon for a WrestleaMania match with Brock Lesnar.
•The storyline he pitched to Vince McMahon for a Lesnar match: “The last year I was in WWE, myself and Hunter, myself and Vince, had a lot of conversations about the contract and creative issues. One of the ideas I had – and there were several WWE Superstars I am friends with I shared the idea with – they thought it was an amazing, creative angle. I went to Vince. I had been asking for Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania the last three years. I told Vince you have to build this up properly. I told him it will break records if you build it up properly. I go, you need to let me go away for six months. I live in Las Vegas. MMA is hugely insanely popular. It’s the breeding ground. Let me join a training camp full time for six months. We’ll make it look like I’m about to go do a real fight. I’ll come back and challenge Brock Lesnar to a fight at WrestleMania. The way that I look, people already buy into it. Now I ad the other skills into the mix and people already Lesnar’s MMA background. Now I say we have a WrestleMania-worthy match. Vince, it went right over his head. I remember sitting there dumbfounded. Jesus Christ, you can’t f—ing be this out of touch! Maybe he didn’t want me to go away for six months.”
•On whether he will actually go into MMA: “I’d be lying to you if I said it wasn’t going through my mind. But I’m also a smart, intelligent human being who has a lot of other things going on right now. Bellator wants me to fight for them. I can’t make an honest decision on that until at least January until I know where I’m sitting with my nutritional company, the website, and the book. I have my hand in too many jars at this point. I’m training;, doing muay thai, jiu jitsu, and boxing. That’s my training, conditioning to go back on the road. I’ve always enjoyed that to challenge myself. They had contacted me and I am open to the idea. As a businessman I’m open to the idea. I have to make sure it’s the right fit.”
•On C.M. Punk’s foray into MMA: “I give Punk a lot of credit for the courage he showed, but they made key mistakes with him. He’s not a physical specimen where he’s going to manhandle anybody. He needs to really really have his cards lined up for that to go well, and he bit off more than he can chew going up against Mickie Gall for his first fight. There’s no going back. The UFC is the elite. It’s not like he had any amateur fights. I believe I’m a truly entirely different human being. I’ll dedicate myself 8-12 hours a day if I choose to go that route. That would be one of my reasons to f—ing show [WWE what they missed out on with the Lesnar idea] whether they gave a sh– or not. That would be the easiest, quickest way to restore lost momentum and going out there and doing it for real.”
You can listen to the full clip of the Ryback interview HERE.
Ryback was and is terrible. He’s the only one out of touch – about the perceived popularity of his character. I can think of no one in the last 20 years that has been a more generic big guy.
This is a typical example of someone having an idea and thinking it’s great and not being able to see anything else.
It’s not very good. Ryback is going to go away for 6 months, so not on WWE TV? If not, how will he know he’s ‘training’? Also, he’ll train but not actually fight in MMA so how will this make him ‘legit’ exactly?
If WWE did follow his MMA training they are basically giving over time to explain how MMA guys are really tough and their guy wasn’t tough enough so had to go train in MMA.
Then, they’d show him training in MMA … not wrestling!? How does this help WWE? I’d imagine they don’t want to reinforce to fans how legit MMA is and tough those guys are and wrestlers have to go train in MMA to become ‘tough’.
Brock is legit cause he actually did it. Oh, Ryback is back and he’s been training for 6 months and he wants to fight Brock!! Erm … so?
It’s rubbish and the fact Ryback thinks this is genius just shows how misguided he is. Wrestlers book for themselves, not the whole company and they dont see the big picture.
I don’t see how continued endorsement of MMA helps WWE’s product. Build Ryback up having him win Wrestling matches, you know, the thing he’s performing in … wrestling.
The short version is Vince didn’t want him in the Mania main event of have him facing Brock.
Vince is not being out of touch by not wanting to incorporate MMA into his Wrestling shows and angles and have one of his guys go off and do that.
Amen!