12 Cursed Comparisons That DOOMED Promising Wrestlers
10. Ryback (Goldberg)
It was a long year on the sidelines for Skip Sheffield as he pondered his next move. When the former Nexus rookie returned in April 2012, he was recast as Ryback. On wrestling forums at the time, some even typed that out as "RyBack"; they should've gone all the way and punched in "RyBaCk" for a laugh.
WWE put the big muscle mountain on a lengthy winning streak that drew immediate comparisons to ex-WCW fave Goldberg. On taped shows, booming "Gooooooooldberg" chants were deleted so producers could pretend that wasn't the case, but no-one was fooled.
The parallels were obvious to anyone with working eyes.
Ryback rode his Goldberg-esque undefeated streak all the way to Hell In A Cell and a loss to CM Punk. He was arguably never the same after that, but Vince McMahon still had high hopes he could turn Mr. "Feed Me More" into a main event sensation and booked him against John Cena in 2013.
Keep in mind that Goldberg hadn't experienced his renaissance back then (and wouldn't do until 2016), so the comparisons to him weren't considered favourable. WWE fans were pretty much telling those in charge that they didn't want to see workers like Billy big biceps on shows.
There seemed to be limited scope for a Goldberg repeat in 2012, put it that way. Hell, McMahon hadn't even been able to book the genuine article properly between 2003-2004, so how could anyone reasonably expect Ryback to succeed?
He did...OK until surprisingly winding down his WWE run and leaving in 2016, but the Goldberg comparisons certainly hampered his early run.