Ryback is one of the great missed opportunities in wrestling over the past couple of years. Yes, he was shoved down fan's throats for months, but he was finally starting to catch on before he was forced into a main event spot far before he was ready. WWE wasn't willing to go all in on him, so he was losing every chance he had at the title. It greatly damaged his gimmick. To try and recover some of his lost momentum, he was booked against Mark Henry at WrestleMania 29 in a battle of the immovable object vs. the irresistible force. Perhaps a dominant win against the aging veteran could get his career back on track. Instead, he lost and was quickly turned heel where he lost and lost some more. Since last year's Mania, Ryback has had a whirlwind of a year. Despite losing against Henry, he was turned heel and became John Cena's nemesis for the next two pay-per-views. After coming up short again and again, he finally won his first big match in months against Chris Jericho. However, he also became "Cryback" for a short time, which was an absolutely awful idea. His character was having a serious identity crisis. An attempt to pair him with Paul Heyman was a bad combination, and he was left tagging with Curtis Axel by year's end in the forgettable "RyBaxel" tag team. Ryback went from one of being one of the toughest men on the roster at WrestleMania 29, to jobbing to The Big Show in a minute by the time XXX rolled around. It's unclear if WWE will regain their faith in him anytime soon, but it's almost a certainty that this past year has destroyed any chance he had of getting back to main event status again.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
