Former WWE Superstar Ryback was recently a guest on the Busted Open podcast. You can check out some highlights form his appearance here:
On a proposed MMA storyline with Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania:
“My idea was, and I went to Vince, I’ve been asking for Brock Lesnar for WrestleMania for the last three years. But I told Vince, ‘you have to build me up properly.’ And I go, ‘this pay-per-view, it will break all-time records if you build this match up properly.’ And I asked him, I go, ‘you need to let me go away for six months’ and I go, ‘I live in Las Vegas [Nevada]. MMA is hugely, insanely popular. It’s pretty much the breeding ground here in Las Vegas of MMA.’ I said, ‘let me go join a fight camp, full-time, for six months. We will make it look like I’m about to go out and do a real fight. I come back to WWE though, challenge Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.'”
Ryback continued, “Vince, just completely, it went over his head and I just remember sitting there dumbfounded. Like, ‘Jesus Christ! You can’t f–king be that out of touch.’ Maybe he didn’t want me to go away for six months or whatnot. I don’t know.”
On possibly fighting in Bellator MMA:
“Bellator has reached out to [Manager] Pat Buck. Yes. They’ve gone back and forth. They definitely want me to fight for them. Yes. It would probably be for in a year’s period of time. I can’t make an honest decision on that until, at least, January, where I know where I’m sitting with my nutrition company, my supplement company, and the website, and the book. And I just have my hands in too many jars right now, but I am training. I’m doing Muay Thai, boxing, and jiu jitsu right now for fun and that’s my wrestling conditioning, essentially, to go back on the road.”
On if he really is considering the switch to MMA:
“Absolutely, as a business man, I’m absolutely open to the idea of it. I just have to make sure it’s the right fit.” Ryback added, “that would be the easiest, quickest way to restore lost momentum, is to go out there and do it for real.”
On CM Punk’s UFC debut:
“I give Punk a lot of credit for the courage that he showed in going and doing that. But they made some key mistakes with him. And he’s not a physical specimen where he’s going to manhandle anybody. He needs to really, really, really have all of his cards lined up for that to go well and he bit off more than he can chew going up against Mickey Gall for his first fight. There’s no turning back. He’s going to the top. Do you know what I mean? As far as UFC, that’s the elite right there. It’s not like he had any amateur fights or anything like that.”
(All transcribed quotes courtesy of Wrestling Inc.)
