Ryback On Who First Gave Him Idea To Use Steroids, GHB Addiction, Being On Great Khali Duty, More
On episode 11 of Conversation With The Big Guy, former WWE Superstar Ryback talked about a number of topics including thinking he needed to take steroids to be a successful professional wrestler when he was younger, experimenting with the 'club drug' GHB, and having 'Khali duty' while in Deep South Wrestling.
According to Ryback, four-time Mr. Olympia, Jay Cutler, used to frequent the Las Vegas, Nevada Gold's Gym where Ryback worked part-time as a 19 year old student.
"He used to come into Gold's Gym when I worked at the front desk and I was 19 years old. And at that point, I never touched anything. I was just a 235, 240 pound kid. Just full-time in school, working part-time. And he used to tell me, 'you should be a bodybuilder. Like, you have good genetics.' And I would tell him I want to be a pro wrestler."
Apparently, Cutler put the idea of using steroids in Ryback's mind. Moreover, 'The Big Guy' thought he had to do steroids to be a pro wrestler when he was in his early 20s.
"He was actually the one to kind of put it in my head, 'maybe I should f–king do steroids because I have good genetics.'" Ryback added, "but in my early 20s, I thought that I had to do that to be successful, if that makes sense."
On the subject of GHB, Ryback claimed he was first exposed to the depressant at Deep South Wrestling and that he eventually became addicted to it.
"A good portion of the guys had their water bottles full of this stuff. And it wasn't the environment of today, but we would train five days a week and just kill ourselves and go through all of that. And on the weekends and shows, and just, yeah, decompress, have fun, do whatever the f–k we want, drink, and do this GHB, which, eventually, I would do it every day. It became a very regular part of my life, where, for me, it was kind of the first thing I really, truly got addicted to down there. And the training was hard and whatnot and I could sit there and say, oh, I can make up any excuse I want that I did it because of that, but I got addicted to it."
Ryback continued, "I would do it after practice and everyone, and this was, again, across the board, a lot of people [would do that] and I would take a nap after practice, get up, eat, take another cap because if you do just a little, it would give you energy. Such a weird drug. And then, I would go work out for three hours. Yeah, and then, get home and do a bunch and eventually pass out and sleep."
Additionally, Ryback stated that GHB, a drug approved by the FDA in 2002 for treating narcolepsy, would make him sleepwalk.
"The GHB would make me sleepwalk where I would take it at night, like, you're in such a deep sleep, but I would have to piss or something. And having sleep apnea, it's such a dangerous combination at the time, but I would wake up in my sleep and go to the bathroom. There were nights where I would wake up in the morning and I'd pissed on the shower curtain." Ryback said, "I remember some mornings, my shower curtain would be ripped off the wall and the bathroom would be a mess."
Also during the podcast, Ryback recalled being the first Deep South Wrestling talent to have 'Khali duty'. As the story goes, trainer Bill DeMott asked Ryback to be the first talent to have 'Khali duty', which entailed driving him around and running errands.
"Great Khali came to Deep South and I was the first one they assigned to 'Khali duty', they called it, where you would have to go pick him up and bring him to a store, like, whatever [Khali needed]. Like, I had to set up his AOL account, like call AOL."
Ryback elaborated, "if Khali wanted to go at a certain point, you were told just to take him whenever he wanted to go and I was the first one."
Ryback indicated that he mixed booze and GHB one night and woke up late when he was supposed to take The Great Khali to get groceries. The former WWE Intercontinental Champion said his room appeared to be struck by a literal 's–t tornado'.
"There was one particular incident with the GHB. I had to pick him up in the morning to take him to the grocery store. And it was supposed to be like he wanted to go early in the morning." Ryback recalled, "I wake up late. I had many missed calls from The Great Khali that morning. It was like a Sunday morning and Saturday night, [we were] out. I woke up in my bed and I felt like I had died, like a whole other level. And, again, probably for the second or third time in my life, I should have been dead. And I'm sitting there, lying in bed, and I sit up, and I smell, like, the most horrid smell that you could ever imagine smelling. And I'm like, 'what the f–k?' and everything was blurry and I look. My room is destroyed. My bedroom looked like it got hit by a s–t tornado. And when I say a 's–t tornado', I mean piles of s–t. Piles! Not one pile of s–t, multiple piles of s–t and puke all on the floors in my bedroom. Piss all over the walls. The bathroom, completely destroyed."
Since Ryback was already running late for 'Khali duty', he decided to leave the mess and clean it up later. 'The Human Wrecking Ball' professed that it took him three hours to clean up his bedroom following the incident.
"It took me three hours to clean up that bedroom. And then, I got done just in time to invite the guys over to watch the Royal Rumble at my place."
Click here to check out the podcast. If you use any of the quotes that appear in the article, please credit Conversation With The Big Guy with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Conversation With The Big Guy