Ryback parted ways with WWE in 2016, and he has since been keeping busy on the indie scene, he recently released a new book, and he’s also been busy hosting his own podcast.
During a recent episode of his podcast, Conversation With The Big Guy, Ryback spoke about his thoughts on John Cena, and he held nothing back. He brought up former WWE star Alex Riley, and although he didn’t reveal exactly what the issue is between Cena and Riley, he claimed that John Cena ended Riley’s WWE career.
“It’s not my place to discuss this, but John would sit there and bury Riley in front of everybody for no reason, and Alex Riley is f***ing money. He was money from day one. He would bust his a**, he had awesome theme music and he went out there and got a reaction from the people. Because of John Cena, and people I swear to god because of John Cena, his career is over in the WWE, for no reason outside of John and his personal issues.”
Ryback went on to call John Cena “poison to the wrestling industry” and he even said that he thinks Triple H started NXT so that he could protect up and coming stars from Cena.
“He’s been poison to the wrestling industry. This is my opinion, but I think I’m pretty accurate on this. I think he did so much harm for so long to new talent breaking out up there, and I have my experiences, and other talents up there have their experiences, that I think Hunter had to finally say ‘What the f**k do I need to do?’ I think he just started with the NXT thing and bringing up these NXT guys and protecting the f**k out of them. There’s so many guys now, John can’t just pick his battle with one guy, because there’s 9 other guys that are hot. Hunter’s brilliant if that’s what he did to get rid of the Cena problem.”
There’s no denying that John Cena has been one of the most polarizing figures to ever step foot in a wrestling ring. Many fans have argued that Cena’s success has held other talents back from reaching the next level, and it seems that Ryback feels the same way.
What do you think, has John Cena been good or bad for the wrestling industry? Sound off in the comments below.
Cena made the product stale for many years but hopefully now in the twilight of his career he is willing to give back and put other stars and future talent over, at least more than he had in the past.
Although he’s speculating, it sounds like the stuff we wresting fans (iwc?) speculate. I like his view of H making nXt to keep new stars from Cena. And although Cena isn’t fully to blame but mostly the ideas and push behind him, we can’t argue that only during his absence did wWe finally evolve.
This is absolute hogwash. McMahon is the boss. He has final say in everything. Cena doesn’t “bury” anyone. McMahon is the one who books Cena to squash up and comers. Cena is just doing what the boss orders.