The Original WWE Nexus 8: Where Are They Now?
4. Skip Sheffield
Yip yip yip, what happened to Skip Sheffield?
The "cornfed meathead", a weird southern babyface update on Superstar Billy Graham, retired the cowboy hat following a devastating ankle injury suffered a mere three days after his faction had been similarly shattered at SummerSlam '10. If there were ever a good time to suffer a career-threatening injury, that was the time - and Ryback, for a while, had really good timing.
Repackaged as the relentless cyborg character Ryback, and heavily pushed at a time before only the coolest Independent starlets would do, Ryback transcended (justified) Goldberg rip-off accusations with a palpable belief in himself, a limited but potent throwback power game, and an ability to command a reaction from live crowds lost on so many of his peers. He enjoyed an improbably great 2012, but a short-sighted 2013 heel turn cast the difference-maker as just another guy - by which point the shifting landscape had rendered his kind extinct.
Known latterly as something of a dumbass - Ryback as Sheffield once admitted as such ("Am I the smartest guy in the world? Heck no!") - he did something particularly daft upon his release. Burying WWE on the way out, he burned the only bridge that led to relevance. A performer of his ilk was engineered only for WWE. No other promotion with any money behind it suits 'The Big Guy', hence his recent appearances for the unglamorous likes of 'Northeast Wrestling' and 'High Impact Wrestling'.
Ryback, more concerned with shifting supplements these days, can rightly claim to be among the last true draws. He headlined Hell In A Cell 2012, which broke the 200,000 barrier in an otherwise weak year.
He spouts so much b*llocks, however, that delusion, not drawing power, shapes his legacy.