7 Things That Ruined Ryback's WWE Push

4. Ryback The Bully

On the night after WrestleMania 29, Ryback faced off against John Cena, turned heel, and changed his gimmick. He started acting like a tough-guy bully, complete with new catchphrase (Ryback Rules). He would intimidate and assault anyone smaller then him, like a true bully; but would run away and hide when facing off against someone of equal size or bigger than him€like a true bully. While this might have made sense in terms of making him fresh and justifying his heel turn, it didn€™t make sense in terms of character development. This was the same guy that, the year prior, was picking up big guys like Tensai and Mark Henry, and slamming them onto the mat without trouble. And now, he€™s suddenly afraid of anyone who€™s bigger than him? It was as if everything that happened prior to that heel turn was completely irrelevant in establishing Ryback as a top threat. In creating this new variation of the Ryback character, they basically took a 6€™3, 291lbs. Goldberg look-a-like, who was a monster of a man, and turned him into a glorified giant coward. It just made all his hard work and domination the year prior completely worthless. From there, it was a quick descent into mid-card purgatory. No one believed that the new Ryback would win against established stars, and even if he did, people just didn€™t buy into him as a threat in the same way that they did the year prior. The magic was gone: the unstoppable force that was Ryback in 2012 was no more.