Ryback On Paul Heyman And Eric Bischoff Taking Control Of WWE Raw And SmackDown
With WWE just a few months away from SmackDown Live moving to FOX, Vince McMahon has gone the route of ensuring that both SmackDown and Raw are putting on the best shows possible. To achieve that, McMahon appointed Paul Heyman as the Executive Director of Raw and re-hired Eric Bischoff to the same position for SmackDown. Bischoff will be in his new role for Tuesday's SmackDown Live.
Ryback discussed these moves and the potential benefits of them when Wrestling Inc's Raj Giri joined him on the Conversation with the Big Guy podcast.
"It is going to take time in all of this. They need a game plan, Raj. I was thinking about this: what do they do with this because it's been years and years of a broken system and now it's finally really showing its head with the ratings and casual viewers have gone down tremendously? My thing at the end of the day is that it is pro wrestling, it's entertainment and everybody that watches, especially casual viewers, want to be entertained and you have to give them something to sink their teeth into and you want good in-ring action. You need compelling storylines over time; not just one or two, you need it throughout the show," Ryback said.
"This is just me with my creative side where I can see it's a Paul Heyman thing. Paul likes backstage promos and Aleister Black has been doing those. For me, what I would like to see is ... you are doing other things through the year with talent, but doing long-term plans where you actually map things out. They used to do it a lot more. You don't need to do a lot of it but if you had some long-terms and some short-terms and mid-term storylines you are going to bring more people in and you are going to get people more invested into it. I think it's a step in the right direction."
Ryback then said WWE's system doesn't allow for marquee names and big stars. He cited Becky Lynch this year and Braun Strowman last year as Superstars who became red-hot, but things then cooled off because they weren't used correctly. They then try to build up the Superstars again, but the damage is already done and it doesn't work as well the second time around.
"You are never quite ever able to get back that 'larger than life' character. They have a system. They know how to do this very well and it fits their business model. If you look at it time and again with guys, with myself at times, it makes it really hard to get back there," Ryback said before revealing what it would take for him to return to WWE.
"That was my thing; you have to leave. You have to get away. That to me would be the most appealing thing where if they want to bring back marquee names I would go back there in a heartbeat because there is no ceiling anymore where it's like, all you have to do is get over. I like that game."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Conversation with the Big Guy with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.