Ryback On Goldberg Defeating The Fiend For The WWE Universal Title At Super Showdown
Much to the chagrin of many WWE fans, Bill Goldberg defeated The Fiend at Super Showdown to capture the Universal Championship. Bray Wyatt is one of WWE's most popular Superstars while Goldberg is a 53-year-old part-timer who now has a main event spot at WrestleMania.
Ryback discussed what WWE is doing with Goldberg with Wrestling Inc. President Raj Giri on his podcast, Ryback TV Shooting Blanks Wrestling Report With Raj Giri.
"I'll never sh*t on anyone having success as far as Bill coming in and being used. ?But Bill Goldberg, with the conditioning aspect of things, father time is undefeated. Bray is good with his body but he's a heavy guy and if you have difficulty doing things and look fatigued ? and this isn't sh**ting on Bill ? but he's been out of the game for a long time. You question what are they doing and I want Bill to be healthy. He's still in phenomenal shape but looking at it from a cardio aspect, he's heavily fatigued with very short matches," stated Ryback.
"They've done this so long in the past ? and The Fiend is protected by how they take him out ? but he's the top merch seller. It's the one thing that has interest with the fans where they're not necessarily sh**ting on it as much as other things that they do. But you have an opportunity to have him go into WrestleMania with the title, you need to be in the feature matches. That would raise his stock farther. But it's not my company or my business."
Instead of having a title match at WrestleMania, The Fiend will now take on a returning John Cena in a non-title match. Ryback wonders if they will job The Fiend to Cena in order to not elevate Wyatt to the upper echelon of Superstars.
"We've seen this when they don't want any more marquee names ? they will take it away when they need to take it away to prevent that. That is what scares me," admitted Ryback. "The Fiend is not in that circle of talent ? he never has been and he never will be. There's no rhyme or reason who gets put into that circle, but I don't think he's ever been in it."
Ryback said WWE booking this way is a short-term approach and they would be better off being patient and building up Wyatt for over a year.
"I think you need to book him strong for a longer period of time," Ryback said of The Fiend. "The Bill Goldberg stuff confuses me. I'm honestly baffled because they f***ing hated him while I was there ? Hunter and Vince. I wasn't allowed to f***ing talk about him. What's changed with that where now they've put the title on him twice?
"If I was there full-time, I would be f***ing pissed. I'm sure all of the boys are at another guy coming in and taking your WrestleMania spot. You whore yourself out all year and then they give the big paydays to the people who aren't holding the company up. That's not a knock on Bill as they do it on all of the past guys."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Ryback TV Shooting Blanks Wrestling Report With Raj Giri with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.