Is Ryback the Next Big Thing in WWE?

Ryback. So, what are your thoughts on this one?

Wait, let me guess. He’s a Goldberg rip-off, right? A big, muscle-bound bald guy who comes out, snarls, hits some high-impact power moves on an unsuspecting jobber and gets the quick one, two, three.  

Week in and week out, he squashes one little guy after another, leaving them for dead, while he screams “finish him,” and bobs his head to the guitar riff of his entrance music.

Impressive? Eh. We’ve seen it before, haven‘t we?

A power wrestler doing what power wrestlers do. He’s a big man masquerading as a good big man, and doing a pretty poor impression at that.

In fact, the whole Ryback gimmick is nothing more than just the same, tired, old, rehashed idea, repackaged for the modern era.

Truth be told, it’s not much of a repackage, right?

After all, Skip Sheffield was a big ‘ol country boy in a cowboy hat, trying to find his identity as a member of the Nexus. Ten minutes later, he’s a killing machine known as Ryback, the poor man’s Terminator, steamrolling every nameless bump boy who’s unfortunate enough to face him in the ring.  

OK, so, think I’ve got them all now. Does this about cover it, when it comes to Ryback, and his complete non-value to WWE?

Yes? Good. Then let me take the time to tell you something you might not want to hear. In fact, you may be pretty disappointed by it.

The guy is getting over. Sorry.

Hey, don’t get me wrong here, I was just as surprised as you were. I was Chris Griffin from Family Guy with that over the top “whaaaaa?” expression when I realized it. I feel you on that one.

In fact, when I heard the crowd at Over the Limit, and nearly every crowd he’s been in front of since then chanting “Goldberg,” I just shook my head and silently wondered what in the world WWE, yes, even Vince McMahon, was thinking.

Turns out the answer to that is “I’m going to make a star out of this guy.”

It’s working, people. Slowly but surely, little by little, it’s working. Ryback is not getting a major league pop right now, let’s be clear about that, but the fact is, he's definitely beginning to make a dent.

But, how, you ask. How can this guy, who is just a big bunch of nothing, suddenly becoming anything more than just another big man with a recycled gimmick? Easy. He’s in WWE. This is what they do.

Making something out of nothing, taking a spark, however small, and nurturing it, giving it all the room it needs to ignite, and then, lighting the fuse at just the right moment. This is how Vince has built his empire, and it continues to be how WWE does business today.

Vince is a star maker. He's very good at it. His eye for talent is one of the best, if not the best, that this business has ever seen, and he obviously has his sights set on Ryback, who is being given just enough rope to either hang himself or climb his way to the top.

Now, I’m not suggesting that he will be World Champion anytime soon. That’s crazy talk, right? How could we believe that Ryback, who is just a big bunch of nothing—wait, have we covered this already?

That’s right, I, for one, happen to believe that the World Title is not out of the realm of possibility for Ryback. Yes, it’s still very early in his new gimmick, but fans cannot deny what they see in front of them every time he’s in the ring.

He’s big. He’s strong. With a body like a gladiator, and the intensity to match. He has the right look, he has the right move-set and he has the right boss behind the scenes, smiling that infamous evil smile of his, chuckling that he doesn’t need Goldberg, he just created one.

OK, so maybe that laugh didn’t really happen. But, when I look at Ryback, I see a ready-made WWE Superstar—a guy who just needs to keep doing what he’s doing, and it will eventually lead to bigger and better things.

Oh, and for everyone out there who's complaining that Ryback is not working anyone who really “counts,” and that he needs more, let me remind you that the guy did just start. He needs time to mature, to improve, to keep establishing himself, so when the time comes to really up his game, he will be ready.

I was there, this past Monday night to see Raw in Greenville, South Carolina. When the two doomed jobbers stood in the ring, smugly awaiting their punishment, I was loving every minute of it.

The two men in question, Kirby Mack and Stoney Hooker, are local favorites here in the Carolinas. They have each been paying their dues, and continue to do so, every time they’re in the ring. On this night, their involvement came courtesy of High Velocity Wrestling—a Hendersonville, NC, promotion that I have worked with and written about before.  

HVW is a great company, with a bright future, and when they received the call from WWE, as they have in the past, they sent two of their best to make Ryback continue to look as good as possible.

It’s safe to say that they did their job.

The longer the match went on, the louder the crowd became. As Ryback neared the end and signaled for his finisher, fans actually exclaimed “finish him,” right along with him.

It was then that I began to see, and understand, what I have known for quite some time. WWE is the best in the world at what they do. They can take a concept, an idea, a gimmick, and it doesn’t matter if it’s been done, or overdone, if there’s a way to make it succeed, they will find it.

And, they’re finding it right now with Ryback.

Again, he just started, and there’s no reason to speed it up faster than necessary, proclaiming him as a sure-fire WWE Hall of Famer. If he stays healthy, stays the course and the company continues to give him the spotlight, then we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the future.

But, for me, I see a Superstar who could very well become the newest hot property in a company that prides itself in capitalizing on what it has and marketing it in such a way that fans just have to see it.

I believe that Ryback is that guy.  

You could even say that he’s next.