Ryback On Vince McMahon's Reaction To AEW, How AEW Can Make Itself More Appealing To Talent Than WWE
At the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, Triple H referred to AEW as a "piss-ant" company while Stephanie McMahon actually stated that they are competition during a commencement speech at RMU.
However, Vince McMahon hasn't given any public comments on All Elite Wrestling and whether he sides more with Triple H's character or Stephanie's opinion. Ryback attempted to crawl into McMahon's mind regarding AEW when Wrestling Inc's Raj Giri joined him on the Conversations with the Big Guy Ryback podcast.
"I don't know," Ryback replied on McMahon's reaction to AEW. "Sometimes [WWE] will downplay things and act like they're not worried, but it has to be on their radar. I mean, obviously, them trying to lock their talents down for longer contracts, there has to be some internal concern over what is going on that this whole thing popped up with a guy in Tony Khan that has more money than Vince McMahon. And you know, with Impact Wrestling they had a lot of money, but it was always a negative kind of taste that was left in people's mouths. It was always a kind of like every year people always talked about Impact going out of business, they just never really had the momentum where I feel like AEW has momentum on their side.
"Fans I think want to see this succeed so bad so there is competition because I believe everyone wants WWE to put out a better product. So, I think the wrestling fans are supporting this to create this environment to create a better wrestling product down the line, if not immediately, but Vince has to be concerned. With the XFL, he is so busy, how much time with everything and obviously with Triple H's role has stepped up tremendously, I don't know, they have to be concerned from a talent standpoint."
Ryback then brought up that Chris Jericho recently mentioned that he's not an independent contractor with AEW, but rather an employee. Ryback says if that's how AEW will treat all of its talent, then that would give them a leg up on WWE in terms of being an attraction for talent.
"I think they are currently using the WWE model for the time being," Ryback speculated of how AEW views its wrestlers. "But that got me to think that if AEW just flat out started making wrestlers employees and started doing things right from the start, that would give them even more momentum and would give them coverage all around the world where this babyface company that is coming along to save the day for pro wrestling. I think they have to look at that and I would love to see them do that because it would instantly force WWE to adjust their policies in order to get the best talent around the world.
"If you are a pro wrestler you have one company where they are giving you health insurance and benefits to take care of you and this other company that doesn't and there's television and it's the same thing. I am going with the company that makes me an employee all day long; it is an interesting time in pro wrestling. I am excited because our generation really got screwed out of all this and we had nowhere to go. You always heard of people walking on egg shells. That's why it's cool where our group of guys and how it started with Wade Barrett leaving and then Alberto Del Rio and I followed afterward; CM Punk left before that, like guys just walked out. Cody Rhodes walked out and started this trend with our generation where he said f**k this, we're out of here! I think we all did it for our own individual reasons and it's like this perfect storm, man, I'm personally just excited. It gets me really hyped up just thinking about it. Vince McMahon has to be worried.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Conversations with the Big Guy Ryback with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.