Ryback On What Day Impact Should Air On AXS TV, Why He Wouldn't Join A Promotion With A TV Deal
With Impact Wrestling's parent company becoming the majority owner of AXS TV, Impact Wrestling's weekly TV show will be moving to the network in October.
Currently Impact airs on Fridays on Pursuit Channel with no day announced for the AXS TV move. Wrestling Inc's Raj Giri joined Ryback's podcast, Conversation With The Big Guy, where The Big Guy discussed which day Impact should air on AXS.
"I would say that Tuesday night would be a prime spot for them to put the show early in the week before the others start, at least to give them a little chance if Tuesday is the open date rather than Thursday where you've already seen a few wrestling shows for the week," Ryback said before mentioning the changing landscape of TV where many are cutting cords and lots of networks are struggling.
"A lot of us are on our phones with social media and YouTube, and TV is getting harder and harder to get our attention and now the big ones are the NFL and Game of Thrones. Those are all there, but a lot of other shows are struggling, and pro wrestling is another one.
"I can understand Anthem buying AXS TV, there are so many games in town wrestling-wise, and Impact has fallen from where they once were. They were always the No. 2, but it was never really truly a No. 2 because there was such a big gap between them and WWE for a long time, at least I felt that way. So, I don't know. I hope they can get a nice timeslot on a Tuesday and carve out a nice niche for themselves because for pro wrestlers it helps to have many places to go to. So, I hope they succeed and I hope it's a good thing at the end of the day, but again, we'll just have to see with all of these companies to kind of be rolling and see what will happen."
With WWE on USA and FOX, AEW on TNT, and Impact and New Japan on AXS TV there are lots of options for wrestlers to be seen nationally. But Ryback discussed why he would have no interest in joining a company with a TV network deal.
"It's really tough, and I've thought of this from my own personal experience time and time again with everything I am doing in my business and I am talking to some of the people I am working with. I see zero benefits to going into working for a wrestling promotion that is on TV," revealed Ryback. "Personally for me, I see many more benefits just going and doing independents and getting my match footage to put on my Ryback TV and just have my own channel like I have and just market myself.
"I think we live in a new day and age now where we can do that sort of thing as wrestlers. I don't think anybody is really looking at it like that. A lot of times you do need to go to TV for name value. Guys like Will Ospreay, and maybe he does and I'm just clueless to it, but he has a YouTube channel and is putting all his matches on YouTube. He's going to make a lot of money for that. If he negotiates those deals with the promotions, a lot of those promotions film and that is kind of where I am leaning because I need to control my schedule a little bit.
"But I am looking at this as there is just so much f***ing wrestling that I don't want to throw my name in a hat and be part of that where unless you are Brock Lesnar and have that negotiated where you can control how much you are being seen, everybody is thrown into the same bag. And to me, I'd rather just treat it and not do it all of the time and be whored out. That is not appealing, it really isn't. But all of these companies are vying for everyone's attention and there's just so much going on."
You can listen to the episode in the video above. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Conversations w/ The Big Guy Ryback with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.