by Brian Phelps
Eight months ago, Ryback was riding a seemingly unstoppable wave of momentum as a monster face and it was just a matter of time before he would win the WWE Championship. He had been undefeated for 6 months as he disposed of jobbers and mid-carders right and left on his way to 38-0 record. Fast forward 8 months and Ryback has been ruined. So what happened?
For some reason, WWE Creative is still booking him as a main event monster but now no one believes in Ryback anymore. Why? WWE Creative thought it would make sense to completely derail all of Ryback's momentum by having him lose at 7 straight Pay-Per-Views. He lost to CM Punk at Hell in Cell, he lost to CM Punk at Survivor Series, he lost to The Shield in a tag match at TLC, he lost the Royal Rumble to John Cena, he lost to The Shield in a tag match at Elimination Chamber, he lost to Mark Henry (clean) at Wrestlemania 29, and he wrestled to a No Contest with John Cena at Extreme Rules.
To make matters worse, WWE decided to turn Ryback from a monster face into a babbling barbaric heel. Once he became a heel, WWE thought it would be great to give Ryback a mic and let him cut long drawn out promos that exposed his weaknesses as a mic worker. Ryback's drawn out promos caused John Cena to unintentionally bury Ryback because Ryback was unable to successfully trade barbs on the mic with Cena. So Cena and Ryback's verbal confrontations always leave everyone feeling like Cena got the better of Ryback.
It also made no sense how they retroactively claimed Ryback and Cena used to be friends when they never cut any promos as "buddies", and never really tagged together. There was never any inclination that they were friends... but for some reason now that Ryback is a heel they claim that him and Cena were best buddies at one time. WWE revisionist history that makes no sense.
Despite all of this, WWE still wants us to buy Ryback as an unstoppable legitimate threat to Cena's championship. I'm sorry, but if a boxer lost 7 straight pay-per-views... would you still think he was a threat to win the Heavyweight Title? NO! He'd be considered a bum. If a MMA fighter lost 7 straight Pay-Per-View fights Dana White would cut him from the UFC.
In over 20+ years of watching wrestling, I don't think I've ever seen this before. I've never seen a guy lose at 7 straight Pay-Per-Views and still be promoted as unstoppable. It makes no sense. WWE has ruined Ryback and I fully expect Ryback's winless drought on Pay-Per-View to extend to 8 straight Pay-Per-Views after Sunday's WWE Payback Pay-Per-View. WWE was onto something huge with Ryback 8 months ago... now it seems as though it won't be long until Ryback is horn tooting with Santino Marella or in a losing feud with Hornswoggle.
