Ryback On AJ Styles Replacing Jinder Mahal To Face Brock Lesnar Tonight, Kevin Owens Being Sent Home
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn landed in some hot water with the WWE and were sent home early from its European Tour earlier this month. On his Conversation With The Big Guy podcast, Ryback gave his opinion on the situation.
As noted, Owens and Zayn reportedly didn't follow directions given to them during their segment with the New Day on SmackDown a few weeks ago. The plan was for Owens and Zayn to try unsuccessfully attack The New Day after the match to make The New Day look strong. Instead, they left the ring early. Ryback said he saw the segment and it looked normal to him. He said he doesn't think Owens and Zayn would do something that unprofessional and he doesn't want to believe that it's the reason they were sent home.
"I watched it and I didn't even see anything out of the ordinary," Ryback said. "That scenario happens in pro wrestling quite often, and I have no idea and I really don't give a s**t. I think people will try to make something out of nothing; they could have very well done that, but I wouldn't think they would be stupid enough to do that. That's not like doing a promo and saying what you want to say; you might not like what they have for you, and you can speak up and try to have it changed, but when you go out there and everybody is on the same game plan; they assume you are on the same game plan and then you don't do that, that's like career suicide.
"You have to look at it from Vince McMahon's standpoint," Ryback continued. "You can argue with him all day long, but when you go out there you do what he wants. The moment you go against that, not only in WWE but everywhere else, you show that you can't be trusted. That is the one thing that makes wrestling work. It's fake, and it's just a sense of professionalism, so that is why I don't want to believe that they did that. Everyone is jumping on it and all these things. They could have gotten sent home for other reasons. Who really knows. People like to talk about this stuff. If it did happen it is really unfortunate that they reacted that way. I will be shocked if it is true though."
Ryback also commented on AJ Styles winning the WWE Championship from Jinder Mahal in SmackDown. He said he doesn't know what the plan is for Mahal, but he expects Styles to have a good match with Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series tonight. He said it's possible Lesnar had some say in who he would work against on the pay-per-view.
"I don't know what the deal was; I don't know if Jinder is hurt or what not, but I think AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar is the better matchup on paper in every way. I like Jinder. Jinder is a great guy, but this could be a short-term thing, and then the title will go back to Jinder, but I don't know. He lost the title, and I think AJ vs Brock is an interesting matchup," Ryback said. "AJ is very talented. He is adjusted, and Brock is a unique specimen as far as how his matchups go and I believe AJ is creative enough to make the matchup work, so we'll see. If AJ gets beat it's really expected because of the size difference, but I believe AJ can make it somewhat believable inside the ring because of the offense that he has. I think Brock will be more than willing to work with him because of how good AJ is. I think Brock has a say in who he gets to wrestle against."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Conversation With The Big Guy with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Conversation With The Big Guy
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.