7 Things That Ruined Ryback's WWE Push

1. His Feud With John Cena

As was previously mentioned, Ryback turned heel after attacking John Cena, became a bully, as well as Cena€™s next opponent. It kind of made sense: Ryback as the over-bearing bully going up against the supposed €˜underdog€™ who never gives up in John Cena. Unfortunately, John Cena as an underdog is about as believable as The Great Khali performing a diving Moonsault. If anything, Ryback going up against John Cena was the worst possible mistake because Cena won the entire feud. From the beginning, very few people actually thought that Ryback would win in a decisive fashion over John Cena. If there was such a thing as a monster face, i.e. an unstoppable €˜good guy€™ character who is seemingly unstoppable and always wins, John Cena€™s character would be the poster boy for that kind of booking. Even though Ryback pinned Cena in the first fall of a Three Stages of Hell Match for the WWE Championship at Payback 2013, Cena still won the match, effectively killing any momentum Ryback had left. That loss was the death knell for Ryback as a top man in WWE. There was no way John Cena would lose his newly-won WWE Championship to Ryback, despite the latter€™s growing popularity and relatively steady upward momentum. Alas, after his short feud with Cena, Ryback briefly feuded with and beat Chris Jericho, before turning towards his bully character full time. After falling from grace, WWE€™s top brass basically gave up on Ryback as the top man, and he has been tag teaming with Curtis Axel ever since. The man who, two years ago was main-eventing WWE title matches and lifting more than 400lbs on his shoulders on a weekly basis, now loses in tag team matches alongside a third generation wrestler who has gone through three different names and gimmicks. What a fall from grace indeed. Ryback has all the tools needed to become a big star again. If he manages to train properly to stay in shape, fails to stiff anyone, and if WWE gives him another chance, he could once again become an interesting character. But of course, that requires WWE having John Cena lose clean once in a while, which is very unlikely to happen. However, Ryan Reeves is 32 years old and still has a number of years left in the WWE. Who knows? Maybe he might be back at the top of the mountain someday after all. Thanks for reading. Be sure to leave a comment and check out WhatCulture€™s WWE section for more interesting articles.