Lol He was getting massively over and they snuffed it out ASAP. You brush off Hell in a Cell as just “curiosity” and then after he jobs and Cena enters the picture the next month you blame him. You’re not using metrics to back anything. You’re stating your narrative and then seeing how you can make the metrics work for you. “It was just curiosity” being your excuse for a bump being a pretty clear example.

And yes calling this...

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... an attitude era pop is not ridiculous. The fact that you can’t at least admit that is more pretty hard evidence that either you’re trolling or you’re dead set on skewing or just flat out ignoring any evidence that a guy you don’t like was making waves.

Anyone who can't admit Ryback was over in that time either wasn't watching or doesn't know what a hot crowd sounds like.

Also not that he'd go there, but Ryback would at least look more legit than 85% of the AEW roster.

The person in question has surface level knowledge of each pockets. I'd compare his opinion to that of a homeless person who's convinced himself that the world is ending.

Watching that video makes me angry lol

Howwwww did they mess that up!

Watched that video. Do you really consider that an Attitude era pop? You can see people not reacting at all. Did he get automated reactions by WWE standards at the time? Sure. But holy fuck is this place insane when it comes to overrating the appeal the guy had just because he was jacked and got people to sing along to “Feed me more!” Talk about fucking narratives.

I was watching far less when Braun was around. When I did, you could literally pick apart the individual “Rawrs!” from the crowd they were so isolated. Cold period? Sure. But let’s not pretend he melted the fucking ice. He was the drizzling shits designed to be in the Kane role, except like Kane, no one got over working with him, and he didn’t make them the money they were spending on him.

That’s why both guys have been released and why one, at least, has turned out to be a definitive nothing in the industry. You’re kicking water uphill by arguing anything otherwise. There’s no evidence either guy ever really mattered.

If referee Jason Ayers took his shirt off he’d look more legit than 85% of the AEW roster. It’s a shame Ryback needed people to project their own ideal charisma onto him.

Lol, remember when the dick cut a promo about The Secret? He fucking sucked. No instincts. Anything he had was paper thin and spurned on by the idea of potential, which actually wasn’t there.

Lol, I can’t believe I’m being called a troll because I’m pointing out that Ryback was a flop. Yes, if they had just pushed him harder we’d be in a golden era right now. We wouldn’t have needed that if they had just put Tom Magee over Bret Hart at WrestleMania though. And if only they had stuck with Nathan Jones instead of taking him out of that Mania tag with Taker.

These wrestlers are guilty pleasures. They weren’t money just because they made half the arena pop a couple of times and actually looked the part.

What this proves to me is that kayfabe isn’t dead, and people are so hungry for someone like Goldberg again that if you get anyone jacked, push them, people will love the shit out of them and defend them 7 years after their one PPV peak.

Wrath should have been a mega-star and beaten Goldberg at Starrcade ‘98, yo.

It's not even the last time they've bricked a layup lol

I’m pretty sure if we could go back and measure the decibels of that live crowd when he hit that clothesline you’d argue that you saw a ton of fans sneezing at the same time and that threw it off.

Now, we could discuss whether he had what it takes to keep it going in the long-run but if you can’t concede this then it’s kinda pointless.

Personally I didn’t rate Ryback all that highly but I can’t deny he was on the rise. Would he have been the next Hogan/Austin/Cena? Fuck knows. Because they derailed him before we could find out. The dude lost to Mark Henry at Mania. Pre-salmon jacket Mark Henry no less. This is the common thread with most of these releases. It’s not necessarily that they would have been the next guy to lead another “boom period”, it’s that there’s always, always something more left on the table.

That Vince/Creative didn’t “get” Aleister Black and couldn’t find something decent for him to do is insane. A dude that looks like that, who walks to the ring and kicks people’s faces off. You don’t even really need to try. There’s an almost never-ending list of guys that could be/could have been more than they were in WWE. They look back and laugh at WCW for letting go a “Stunning” Steve Austin. You think he even gets the chance to become “Stone Cold” in this era?

Lol, you’re starting at the conclusion you want and not moving past that while accusing people of doing the same. If we could measure the decibels of that reaction, I’m sure I would be saying “See?” It’s not that fucking hot, dude. It’s not a terrible reaction, but holy shit are people overplaying this. He was a big dude who got mildly over with squashed, then got a decent reaction in a segment with Vince McMahon, CM Punk and John Cena in front of a crowd that was hungry for almost anything else. And make no mistake about it — had they have gotten Ryback they would have wanted something else then too.

That he wouldn’t have been able to keep it going is kind of the whole point. There was a catchphrase, a look and a push to the guy. When he lost the push, the catchphrase and the look fell through too.

Of course he shouldn’t have lost to Mark Henry. But no, he wouldn’t have been Hogan/Austin/Cena, lol. All three of those guys could work. And no, they probably wouldn’t get Steve Austin in this environment. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who doesn’t get a chance is Steve Austin either.


Aleister Black has a decent look, but he’s pretty boring in the ring and on the mic. He does way too much indy stuff for a dude who is supposed to be a bad-ass. There’s no “oomph” there. People want him to be like a legit CM Punk or something, but he’s more like a Marty Jannetty to Punk’s Shawn Michaels. There’s nothing wrong with him, per se, but there was nothing wrong with Al Snow or Stevie Richards either.

TIL, I wanted Aleister Black to be like CM Punk.

It’s how over, you stupid fuckers. He was not Attitude era over, nor did he do much but increase the buys of a single PPV. Those are facts.

Fuck what I want. I’m starting at the conclusion that that pop was massive. Which seems clear. Because I have eyes and ears. You don’t want to acknowledge even that much. So any discussion past that is pointless because I think your conclusion leaves you unable to admit the obvious. It’s probably the same reason you find yourself needing to rationalize agreeing with xrod’s terrible takes because not doing so might hamper your conclusion. You can admit xrod’s point is stupid while not conceding that AEW doesn’t suck ass. Just like you can admit a crowd reaction was huge while not conceding that he doesn’t suck ass. In fact, it ultimately helps your case.

I don’t think you’re comfortable doing either of those things anymore and it leaves you untrustworthy of honest conversation. You have sadly become CyNick-esque.

The Ryback was over as fuck for brief moment in time. I remember it looking like he was going to get pushed into the US title scene while Miz was champ. Maybe it was IC. Regardless, that looked like the direction till Cena got hurt and Ryback was fast tracked to be fed to Punk. Which is dumb. This company had hot shot title runs for Sheamus, Swagger, Mahal etc. but didn’t just take a shot on a guy who was getting pops. Mind boggling.

Feel like Braun was much more of a "dropped ball" than The Ryback. Feel at points the fans were definitely way more into Braun than they ever were The Ryback.

Yes, WWE didn't do The Ryback any favours in getting him over, but also neither did The Ryback.

I have eyes and ears too. It wasn’t that big, dude. You can see bored people in front fucking row. Hardly anyone is “losing their minds” like you would see routinely through the Attitude era, which this is being compared to. It doesn’t “help” my case to be goaded into conceding an untrue point, based on your subjective interpretation of what’s in front of you, masquerading as objective fact.

It’s possible to have two different interpretations of a crowd reaction. You obviously think it is massive. I feel it is pretty cold and forced compared to genuinely hot reactions. Doesn’t make me fucking wrong because you can’t admit you have a bias like anyone. I can very easily say “If you think this is an Attitude era sized pop, there’s no use discussing further and all further points are moot, because it’s obviously not.”

You’re being as stubborn as you’re accusing others of being.

Lol, when it comes time for Vince McMahon to talk, you can hear a pin drop. Hot crowd, guys.

Scotty 2 Hotty outpopped The Ryback

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What are these rumors that Vince is looking to sell WWE? Wtf did I watch on Youtube? That can't be true......

Ryback was over with me, I’ll tell you that much.

I've read that too. Since they're more into "content creation" than rasslin at this point, it actually wouldn't shock me if a streaming service scooped them up. I don't know if it would be Peacock, but the network being there now could be a step toward that.

Feel like I've made that post before but it could have been a text message or a tweet. Fuck it. It's fine.

It’s also important to remember in jobbing out Ryback, it lead to the debut of Brad Maddox and the Shield. And I think we can all agree that that was overwhelmingly successful.

Especially Brad Maddox

I have a tough time believing that Vince would sell.

That kind of goes against everything people know about him.

He's a carny and carnies like money. He would sell.

Yeah but he’s also a huge control freak who likes things his way.

So I don’t know.

Ryback was buried because Punk cried about how terrible he was. Timing also kind of screwed him up because they were dead set on Rock vs Cena 2, so Punk was keeping the belt to drop Rock, so he could then drop it to Cena.

They also had him job at Wrestlemania then turned him heel, neither of which made much sense.

The Fuck did I do??? :rofl:

I agree with both of these. The reason I think he *could* sell is because he already "let go" of the network.

Of course it could all be bullshit, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Of course he did. That was an Attitude era pop.

Vince at least wants the option of a sale. Everything he’s done has been taking steps to ultimately becoming validated by it.

Ryback was as much a victim of bad timing as anything else. Vince was dead set on giving us to Rock vs. Cena 2 for the WWE Title. And nothing was going to stop him. Not CM Punk finding his groove as the top heel in the company. Not Cena get injured. And certainly NOT some guy getting over in the midcard.

The biggest problem for Vince at that time was, there was no one else who could have stepped into the role of Cena at that point. And, as over as the Ryback was, he wasn't mentally ready for that moment. In a year's time, he may have been. But they needed an opponent for Punk, and no one else was credible at that point (I think at the time I called it 'Cena Uber Alles' booking). So, they had to take the guy gunning for the mid card belt and get him ready to face the World Champion.

Then, they had to do this in a themed pay per view, which required it to be in a Hell in a Cell match. So, they had to show him lose, but in a way that didn't make him look weak. That leads to the next month, and with Cena thrown in the mix, as well. This is where the really bad timing REALLY comes into effect. They need a reason to make him lose in a ladder match and not look weak again. This time, they debut 3 guys to cost him the match. Those 3 guys just so happened to all be guys you could build a company around. So they have to look credible. How do you make them look credible? They have to beat people. Who did they beat more than anyone else? Ryback. What do you call a big world beater who can't beat the world? A loser. They would have been better off not putting him in that spot at al.

What messed Ryback up the most happened before even Hell in a Cell. They needed a big powerful man doing big powerful things. Ryback was the big powerful man. But he couldn't lift up Tensai. And that kind of made him look bad. Oddly enough, a not so big powerful man (which is a crazy way to describe a man who is 6'5" and 232 lbs.) did a big powerful thing that same night. One of them is getting trolled to retire endlessly. The other has been a mainstay in the company since then, he's not a top guy, either. However, Cesaro can and has been used in several roles and made them work.

Yes, we're all aware of your fascination with the leaked videos.