WWE: 10 Superstars Ryback Needs to Feud With

As soon as Ryback debuted shortly after WrestleMania 28, I said it: This guy is going to need a feud, or he'll get really stale really quickly.

So, over the last few months, I've maintained that Ryback needs a legitimate rivalry to avoid becoming a boring, rehashed version of Goldberg.

Yet, here we are almost three months into Ryback's WWE run, and he's still squashing local jobbers instead of feuding with actual WWE stars.

Now, don't get me wrong—some of the things that Ryback does during his matches are very impressive.

But they'd be much more impressive if they came during a feud with a guy who's legitimately on the WWE roster.

Here are 10 current WWE stars Ryback needs to feud with

10. David Otunga

Ryback has spent the early portion of his WWE career defeating jobbers.

And what is David Otunga? Oh yeah, a jobber.

I think the WWE should completely give up on the "Otunga's a wrestler we want to push" experiment and, instead, use him as an enhancement talent that gets destroyed by top-level and up-and-coming baby faces.

That's where Ryback comes in.

Otunga isn't going to be a World Champion one day (God, I hope not), so having him continually get dismantled by Ryback isn't hurting anybody. Well, other than Otunga himself.

You could have Otunga run his mouth like he always does and then end up earning himself a match with Ryback that leads to some matches and a brief feud between the two.

If nothing else, Ryback could demolish someone who actually has muscles for a change.

9. Kane

Since Kane returned under the mask last December, he's feuded exclusively with main event-level superstars.

It's been a mixed bag of results so far, with Kane's feuds with John Cena and Randy Orton being downright awful, while his current one with Daniel Bryan and CM Punk has been pretty damn good.

Regardless of what's happened during the entirety of those three feuds, though, they've all basically ended with Kane losing.

Why not do the same with Kane and Ryback?

Kane is at that point in his career where he should be putting others over (like he did with Orton and Cena and seems to be doing with Bryan and Punk), and judging by his recent booking, he can lose one feud and seamlessly transition into another.

Ryback is going to have to beat actual WWE stars at some point, and Kane's a guy he could easily defeat without jeopardizing the future of the company.

The matches would probably be pretty bad, but if you want to establish Ryback as a monster, he has to defeat some fellow monsters, too.

8. Heath Slater

I'm thoroughly enjoying the work of Heath Slater.

He's been extremely entertaining in recent weeks as the heel enhancement talent who runs his mouth, gets himself into trouble and ends up being destroyed by legends because of it.

I like the whole legends angle Slater is currently doing, but it's undoubtedly going to end at some point, and when it does, a similar angle should continue, only with current WWE stars instead.

The first star that Slater runs into? None other than Ryback.

I could see Slater cutting a promo about how he's hungry for competition and wants the WWE to "feed him more," which would result in a match and short-lived feud with Ryback.

I'm not saying that we need a three-month feud between these two.

But I do think that Slater's promos could turn this into a short TV rivalry between Slater and Ryback that might actually be somewhat entertaining.

7. Jack Swagger

Whenever Ryback has his first legitimate feud, I wouldn't expect it to be against a main event-caliber superstar.

My reasoning for that is that the WWE, although it wants to push Ryback, won't want to do so at the expense of burying a top heel.

That's why I think we'll see Ryback feud with a mid-card heel who has at least some sort of track record of success, and a guy like Jack Swagger fits that bill perfectly.

While Swagger may not be much more than a glorified jobber at the moment, he is indeed a former World Heavyweight, ECW and United States Champion, which is a lot more than most people on the roster can say.

Although it wouldn't be overly impressive for Ryback to defeat Swagger in his current position, it would look a lot better for Ryback to defeat a 6'6" former World champion than someone who never appears on TV anymore.

6. The Big Show

Much like Mark Henry in 2011, The Big Show has turned into a monster heel in 2012.

Given that he lost his first pay-per-view match as a heel, Show isn't exactly unstoppable. But he has been wreaking havoc on anyone in his path, and despite the No Way Out loss to John Cena, he's still in the midst of a big push.

Whenever a huge heel does that, someone is eventually going to come along and stop him.

Chances are that someone like John Cena or CM Punk will end Big Show's reign of terror once and for all, but how about changing things up a bit and having Ryback do it instead?

If you want to really get Ryback over as a big-time baby face, then you could do something similar to what the WWE is doing with Brodus Clay right now and use Ryback to try to stop him.

Of course, Big Show wound up ending Clay's winning streak on Raw, which makes me think that Big Show will continue to bury young talent.

But it would put Ryback over in a major way to have him be the one who finally halts Big Show.

5. Dolph Ziggler

Despite all the recent losses, Dolph Ziggler is getting a very sizable push on WWE TV right now.

Ideally, that push will eventually lead to a World title win. But given the way Ziggler's been used against Sheamus recently, he's apparently in the main event picture more so to make others look good than anything else.

Ziggler's indeed done that with a number of guys recently, who he's sold and bumped like crazy for.

Now, just imagine how insanely awesome his selling would be for a guy like Ryback.

It's no secret that Ryback is absolutely vicious in the ring, and I have no doubt that Ziggler could make Ryback's already brutal-looking moves look even more brutal were the two to feud and have a series of matches.

This wouldn't be an ideal rivalry for me because I think it would ultimately end with Ziggler's burial.

But there are only going to be a select few opponents who could work well with Ryback, and I'd bet that Ziggler would be able to get better matches out of Ryback than anyone on the WWE roster.

4. Chris Jericho

If you've read anything I've written about Chris Jericho, I've always made this bold statement: He's the most selfless superstar ever.

A number of top WWE stars will tell you that they want to help create new ones, but Y2J is one of the very few guys who's actually been willing to do that.

During his last WWE run, Jericho actually put over Heath Slater (on NXT, nonetheless) and Evan Bourne on pay-per-view. Then, during his current run, he lost five straight major PPV matches to open up 2012.

Jericho's made a career out of putting others over, even if he had no business doing so.

Now, I don't think Jericho should be getting beat by an unproven star like Ryback. But history tells me that he'd damn sure be willing to.

Jericho's mindset is that he'll do something if it will benefit the company, and losing to Ryback could benefit the WWE by helping create a new star in Ryback.

If Ryback is going to be taken seriously as a major WWE star, he's going to have to pile up victories over other major WWE stars.

That could all start with a rivalry with Y2J.

3. Damien Sandow

I really want to see a rivalry between SmackDown's two newest stars.

Why? Because it's a perfect clash of contradictions.

On one side, you'd have Ryback, who rarely talks outside of his "Feed Me More!" lines and is essentially a 21st-century barbaric caveman.

On the other side, you'd have Damien Sandow, the intellectual aristocrat who uses big words and looks down on all the simpletons and ignoramuses of the world.

They're literally polar opposites in the way that they go about things, yet there are similarities the two.

Both Ryback and Sandow have easily disposed of all of their opponents, and much of what they do during their quick squash matches is all for show.

They're both rising up the ranks of the WWE at the moment, but there will only be room for one at the top.

Who wins out: the beast or the scholar?

2. Daniel Bryan

Ryback is not going to be able to work with just anyone. 

Trust me, there's a reason why his matches are kept so short: It's that he's very limited in what he can do in the ring.

Even with those limitations, however, Ryback can and will look good if he's paired up with the right opponent.

And who better for Ryback's first feud than Daniel Bryan?

I know many will think that Bryan is beyond Ryback's level, but Bryan seems to have that rare Y2J-like gene where he can lose but still stay over in the process. Thus, I don't think putting Bryan in a feud with Ryback and/or having him lose it would hurt him much at all.

Bryan would recover rather quickly while Ryback would look like a bona-fide star for defeating the hottest act in the wrestling business.

The WWE will undoubtedly be hesitant to put on a match like this so soon, but Ryback's gotta get over somehow.

Putting him over one of the most over stars in the business might be how that gets done.

1. Wade Barrett

From the moment that Ryback returned/debuted, I've wanted to see him feud with Wade Barrett.

While that's been made impossible so far because of Barrett's elbow injury, there's so much history here that could make this feud a great one.

Both Ryback and Barrett appeared on the first season of NXT, Barrett won it and brought Ryback (then known as Skip Sheffield) into the Nexus, but Ryback was removed from the group after suffering a devastating ankle injury in 2010.

I highly doubt that the WWE would ever recognize the past connections between the two because, by the WWE's accounts, Sheffield probably never existed.

But it could be cool to see two of the bigger success stories from NXT Season 1 compete on the main event level.

Even if the WWE chooses not to recognize their prior history, Barrett is one of the most over heels in the WWE and, thus, is someone who could work as a great first feud for Ryback.

While Barrett's teetered on that main-event level for a while now, he's not quite a bona-fide main-event star right now. Meanwhile, Ryback's trying to get there.

A feud between both men could be a very solid upper mid-card rivalry between two of the brightest young stars on SmackDown.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions on Formspring.