Ryback finally got his first credible PPV victory after a long time. The former Skip Sheffield star had to wait for an eternity before getting his first major win in WWE and in the process Ryback has lost a lot of credibility as a monster heel. Ryback started his career in the best way possible squashing jobbers day in and day out.
His first three PPVs set the tone as he being the next destructive force in WWE. His decline started the day he challenged the WWE Champion. Everyone knew that it was too early for him to win the title and hence came the screw Ryback storyline using Brad Maddox and the Shield.
The Shield managed to beat Ryback and Team Hell No in their first PPV match and if this wasn’t enough, Ryback’s biggest slump came when John Cena, who WWE uses to bury talent, beat him to win the Royal Rumble. It was from here that every attempt that WWE made to make Ryback look dominant failed miserably.
Ryback then joined Cena and Sheamus to face the Shield again and this time he not only lost but also got pinned making him the weakest monster heel in the roster. Ryback also lost to Henry at WrestleMania, though the loss was a bit more dignified as many would call Henry’s win a fluke. This loss was followed by two physically contesting match against John Cena where Cena emerged victorious like always.
Anyway, this Sunday Ryback broke his PPV losing streak against Chris Jericho, who is the man to go to for WWE when they want to push a talent over. Jericho did just that as he lost the bout against Ryback but here again, WWE made Ryback look less convincing because he managed to win courtesy a roll-up pin which doesn’t give his victory any credibility whatsoever.
The question that many are asking now is how WWE plans on moving ahead with him. No one ever expected Ryback to end up in such a position and now that he has how does WWE manage to help Ryback regain his lost momentum?
For now it looks as though WWE will have a tough time convincing the fans about Ryback being a dominating force as his image is hurt too bad to find a quick recovery. The best thing that we can expect for now is to see Ryback being pushed to mid-card for now where he can spend sometime fighting it out with the other wrestlers.
As far as his heel status is concerned it is important that WWE keep it intact and don’t aim at making him a face again. Ryback’s support will be too weak as a face and it is time WWE allowed him to get into a feud where he can gain something credible. His recent time with Vickie Gurrero can be made into a decent storyline where Vickie can be his manager.
Vickie can do his work with the mic and Ryback can take care of things inside the ring. It might take Ryback another year to get back where he was in the beginning and given the fact that he is just about 15 months old justifies WWE spending time in building him back as a monster heel.