Ryback says he could have sued WWE over their handling of his 2011 ankle injury and ‘brought them to their f***ing knees’

Ryback keeps talking about his WWE experiences on his podcast, Conversation with the Big Guy, because he knows it will keep leading to stories like this one on places like Cageside Seats.

For that reason, it’s kind of difficult to not be a little skeptical of how sensational his claims have become. But there was also always something a little strange about his 2011 ankle injury requiring three separate surgeries. He’s going into detail about what exactly was fishy about the situation in series of shows subtitled “The Ankle Situation”, and in episode 17, states he could prove there was negligence on WWE’s part with this story:

I was maybe awake for like an hour after surgery. Who do you think calls me at the time who was in charge? Yep, John Laurinaitis who was in charge at the time. And the phone call was being recorded. I could hear the echo on the phone. Yeah, to this day. And he was like, “Well, we did everything we could to get you better, right? Right?’ and was asking me questions and I wouldn’t answer because I knew.

I was like, “They’re going to f***king fire me.”

A couple of months went by and it was when Chris Masters, Johnny Prime, and I forget, there were a couple of other people released. They had all been released during the day. I was the last one, I guess, because I was keeping up with all of it at the time. I was in Gold’s Gym in St. Petersburg, Florida. I get a call from John Laurinaitis and he tries to fire me while I’m still f–ked up with my ankle injury... and I have to stop and cut a 20 minute promo on him on how he’s not firing me and telling him everything that I’ve been through.

I had to get attorneys and look into all of this at this time because now I knew they just tried to fire me. So then, the next step was then they try to put me in developmental again and leave me in developmental rather than bring me back to the main roster because before I was on the main roster.

I never had to wrestle another day in my life if I didn’t want to. The lawsuit we could have brought to WWE could have brought them to their f***king knees based on the ankle and how this was handled from beginning to end. Deep down I knew that by getting attorneys and fending for myself and having the courage to have an opportunity to live my dream, they were forever going to f–k with me. So that is what I was playing with my entire career.

They can deny this all they want, but this is f***king the truth. They wanted to f***k with me based on everything from that.

Laurinaitis wasn’t the only company official who approached Ryback around this time. He also talks about an incident where Triple H came up to him in Developmental and told him, “Eventually, we have to pull the plug on you”. That conversation with someone he looked up to was a game-changer, according to the Big Guy:

... it f***ing not only hurt me, but it also lit a f***ing fire under me that I am playing with the devil in all of this and that woke me up. That’s when everything [changed]. Whatever mark was in me at that point left that f–king moment in time.

I was like, “f*** this – I’m now dealing with this piece of s*** across the board this entire company?” That’s what changed my whole outlook on the wrestling business forever.

Sharing these stories definitely keeps his name on the wrestling web, but they’re not that different from tales we’ve heard from other ex-WWE guys (including Ryback’s nemesis, CM Punk). So just because there’s a promotional element to putting this out there certainly doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Thoughts, Cagesiders?

H/T: Wrestling Inc for transcription