After a birthday on Saturday and several work commitments, your Wrestling God has returned. Yes, I’ve only been away one week but it seems like longer doesn’t it? How you poor minions have coped I shall never know. Still, here we are again so let’s get to it.
A worrying situation has arisen in the world of wrestling in October. After nestling nicely on the fringes of the main event for the last few months, WWE have decided to push Ryback into the main event spot, despite the fact that the artist formerly known as Skip Sheffield doesn’t have the talent to hang with the likes of C.M Punk.
Working worryingly short matches on house shows and television tapings, mostly against jobbers, WWE only decided to make him work longer matches when they realised that they needed a new Goldberg in the main event. I’m all for new players in the main event and new challengers for the WWE Championship – anyone except John Cena at this point will do – but not Ryback. WWE would do just as well pushing Antonio Cesaro in the main event spot without any build up. It’s what they’ve done with Ryback.
The main gripe this plan is Ryback’s recent match with Tensai. If you didn’t see it then the calamity that passed for a match, saw the Japanese Warrior, Tensai, a man who can actually wrestle remember, take on the one man embarrassment machine, Ryback. Posting an image that WWE wanted to rival Brock Lesnar’s, Ryback has torn through jobbers and low level WWE talent in the past months. The real test was the Tensai match. Could Ryback, the man who could supposedly demolish anyone with his unlimited power, take down a man bigger and heavier than himself? The answer became very clear. No.
The match was plodding. Tensai couldn’t drag a decent effort out of Ryback and neither did I expect him to. The crux of WWE’s plan came crashing down around their ears, when the supposed one man power house readied Tensai for his ‘Shell Shocked’ finisher and couldn’t get Tensai up. Now, I don’t know about you, but a man that claims to weigh in at 291 pounds and supposedly bench presses at least two hundred pounds heavier than his own weight, that can’t lift a man that weighs in at 360 pounds, not even a hundred pounds heavier, is marketing bullshit.
I thought there would be some bright light at the end of the tunnel. Watching backstage Vince was apparently furious with Ryback for showing himself and WWE up, after they’d plugged so much into him and the destroyer image. Usually in this situation, WWE would demote the wrestler instantly to the undercard to suffer for months by losing to wrestlers like Santino Marella. Ryback got a reprieve. Thanks to his undefeated streak and physique Ryback’s error was glossed over and now he’s beginning to dip his toes into the main event water.
This is disastrous. The man is a mess in the ring. He can’t string a match together and he’s just too big to do anything convincingly. I can see where this is going. WWE are readying Ryback for a WWE Championship challenge after John Cena and C.M Punk have finished their feud, which WWE seems to be dragging out for an age. You have to question the motives though. Is the main event roster really that empty that WWE have to turn to a man who hasn’t worked a match that lasts longer than fifteen minutes since he was introduced? Should Ryback take up the challenger mantle, then he’s be required to work at least twenty five minutes per pay per view. I don’t think he’s up to it.
The other worrying though is that, to prepare Ryback for a main event feud with C.M Punk WWE are going to use the Miz as a punch bag and stepping stone. Building a feud that will no doubt culminate with a match at Hell in a Cell, which Ryback will probably win, losing to Ryback would set the Miz’s career right back to before he left to film ‘The Marine 3’. If WWE sacrifice Miz for Ryback then they need their heads testing. The signs have already begun to show. Miz’s mauling at the hands of Sheamus on Smackdown were just the beginning.
WWE need to take into account though, that if Ryback does challenge Punk for the WWE Championship, then considering where WWE are taking Punk, to a feud with the Rock, then presumably C.M Punk, at some point during the feud, would have to pin Ryback in the middle of the ring, thus ending his undefeated streak. When that happens, Ryback loses his limited appeal and becomes just another face in an already bustling crowd. Surely WWE would be better off delaying a feud like this until after Wrestlemania 29, that way they could drain the Ryback undefeated streak for all its worth and maybe drum up some more interest in him by having him defeat John Cena. A man whose image wouldn’t be hurt at all by a loss to Ryback.
This situation needs to be handled with care by WWE. Something they’re not adept at doing. Two careers could be halted and potentially ended if WWE mess this up. The Miz would never be taken seriously as WWE Championship material again if he were to lose in a squash match to Ryback. It’s bad enough he was beaten down like he was by Sheamus – WWE should have allowed Miz a fair percentage of the offence. It looked like Miz was out of his depth in the ring with the World Heavyweight Champion – when all the time he posses more skill than Sheamus ever will – he doesn’t need to lose to a man who will never amount to anything in this business. And Ryback is going to look like a fool if WWE has him trying to out wrestle C.M Punk and lose to man lighter and smaller than him.
Let’s just hope that as we get to the baby steps of 2013, we’re not mourning two careers and listing the Ryback push and the C.M Punk WWE Championship reign in the ‘WWE Missed Opportunities’ column.
Onwards and upwards...
