Steve Carrier on December 18, 2017
Ryback is joined on today’s show by his co-host Phoenix Marie.
Ryback speaks about Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss wrestling a match recently in India. They became the first two women to wrestle for WWE in India which was a groundbreaking moment. They wore more conservative outfits in respect for the culture there, but this match broke down barriers nonetheless. He says that this is a very cool story, and it’s great to see these types of barriers falling around the world.
He recalls Alicia Fox cutting a promo during one of WWE’s tours there when he worked for the company and that was a big deal at the time. The fact that two women were able to get in the ring and have a legitimate match is obviously an even bigger deal and a sign of how far we’ve come. He goes on to point out that perhaps WWE could have chosen two more seasoned performers who’ve been on the roster longer, but he had no issue with Banks and Bliss being involved due to their current popularity.
Ryback thinks WWE is making a great move by capitalizing on their enormous social media presence with the announcement of their new Facebook Watch show, “Mixed Match Challenge”. He thinks this is a very interesting concept and he’s intrigued to see how WWE moves forward with this idea.
Ryback comments on Rich Swann’s suspension. He says that WWE had not choice but to suspend Swann amidst the domestic violence allegations that he was facing since they’re a publicly traded company and they can’t have those types of stories circulating around their brand. He wants to wait until we get the rest of the facts before commenting further, but he points out that things do not look good for Swann.
Former WWE Superstar, Wade Barrett said on a podcast recently that WWE officials shut down the Bad News Barrett gimmick and told him to stop using his popular catchphrases because they were garnering a positive reaction. WWE officials didn’t want him receiving a positive reaction since he was a heel at the time. Barrett didn’t understand that concept and asked to just ride with the positive responses and if that meant him turning babyface, so be it. Unfortunately, WWE officials disagreed.
Ryback thinks that WWE dropped the ball with Barrett on numerous occasions. Barrett is 6’7” and was absolutely shredded for a period of time. He believes that Barrett should have won the WWE Title multiple times after his run leading Nexus, but WWE failed to pull the trigger and completely blew their opportunity to make a huge Superstar.
He doesn’t think Barrett’s in-ring career is necessarily over for good, rather he thinks Barrett just needed some time away to himself. Ryback would love to see him have another run where he’d be used correctly because guys like him are a rare specimen on this planet.
Ryback mentions that WWE’s stock rose again this past week and he points out that this is great news for WWE. Even though people continue to complain about the product and the ratings are still declining, WWE continues to find ways to make money. He informs that he invested in WWE when he worked there and actually made pretty good money on those investments, but he hasn’t invested in them in a while now.
Ryback mentions that Dolph Ziggler’s contract with WWE will soon be up, and whether Ziggler resigns with WWE or not, he thinks Ziggler needs a break. He thinks Ziggler has earned that and deserves it.
He adds that his health is so much better now, having been away from WWE for a couple of years. He has a new body now at 36 years old, and he knows he’d still be banged up if he would have stayed with WWE. He thinks that if he stayed with WWE for one more year his career would probably be over now due to how bad his back was.
That sums up this week’s episode of Conversation with the Big Guy. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
December 18, 2017 7:48 pm
Disqus Comments Loading...
