WWE: Is There Really Room for Ryback? Why Monsters Fail Without Gimmicks

Ryback's push as a monster heel looks doomed to fail. In an already crowded market, including established stars who are capable of main eventing such as Mark Henry, Kane and now (occasionally) Brock Lesnar, a performer with an indistinct gimmick and fairly silly name will not get over with crowds.

The formula of a series of squash matches to establish the arrival of a new dominant force is of course nothing new, but successful examples usually have a very strong gimmick. Brodus Clay is an obvious recent example, where the matches took a back seat to his dancing gimmick. This was in stark contrast to his return promos, which seemed to promise a monster heel. At a time when Mark Henry was champion, another monster heel with no other gimmick would likely have sunk without trace. The dancing character was no doubt risky at the time, but to Clay's credit, he threw himself into it, made it work and is hugely popular.

Clay is, of course, a face, but successful examples of the monster-squasher dominant rise include Kane (a wrestler dripping with gimmick) and the more comparable Lesnar. But Lesnar had Paul Heyman talking him up the whole time and entered attacking members on the whole roster, creating instant danger. Just seeing Heath Slater and Khali watching backstage dressed in civvies and talking inaudibly isn't convincing that everyone's looking over their shoulders for Ryback.

One comparison (and one which the typically smart Chicago crowd weren't slow to pick up on at Extreme Rules) is with Bill Goldberg. Goldberg's undefeated ascent was a one-off; it hadn't been done before and can't be done again. Ryback may bear resemblance to Goldberg (albeit with Miz's face and wearing one of Rob Van Dam's old singlets), but people aren't going to be tuning in every week to see whether this is the time he's defeated, and it certainly won't take him straight to a world title.

A good way of judging the quality of a wrestler's name is whether or not you can picture it on a world title belt. Obviously, this criterion can't apply to all wrestlers; Hornswoggle's not going to look right on a belt, and neither is it meant to (leaving aside the Cruiserweight travesty). But Ryback's meant to be a threat, and in theory, you should be able to hear "Here is your winner and new WWE Champion, Ryback!" without chuckling.

You can see the thought process behind the name. "Ryback" sounds like it could be the name of a big animal beast. You can picture Luke Skywalker riding across Tatooine on a ryback. But as a main eventer, it's a step backwards even from Skip Sheffield. It reminds me of when Vince allegedly wanted to rebrand Vader as Mastodon. It's stupid.

Perhaps Ryback's biggest issue is that he's entering as a monster into a roster that's already full of monsters. This isn't helped by the current pseudo brand extension. He's currently a Smackdown superstar, but while Lesnar and Lord Tensai have been Raw exclusive, Kane, Henry and Clay can and have appeared on either brand.

The fact is, behind every successful monster push is a gimmick stronger than just yelling "FEED ME!" and squash matches that make a Divas bout look time-consuming. Without something more distinctive, Ryback's not going to get anywhere. Ryback? Why bother.