Ryback Discusses His Heel Turn, Blasts Paul Heyman, Praises Curtis Axel

WWE Superstar Ryback spoke with the Miami Herald this past week to discuss his career and what he is doing in the WWE tag team circuit as a member of Rybaxel. Below are some of the highlights:

On his arrival to WWE and his short-lived main event run that led to him turning heel:

“I came in 2012 and burst on the scene,” Ryback said. “I believe I was the most popular thing. Before the ‘Yes Movement’, there was the ‘Feed Me More’ movement. I took the WWE by storm. I was undefeated for some time, sometimes taking on two guys at one time. I jumped in the main event scene very quickly and stayed very popular with the WWE Universe for a long time. We made the switch and went an opposite way and took it all away. Not that I necessarily agreed with it at the time, but I feel it was a good move.”

Ryback also had the chance to work alongside Paul Heyman for a period of time, though he did not have any kind words for him:

“I got absolutely nothing [from that],” Ryback said. “It’s a time period I will not even think to look back on.”

He also discussed working with Curtis Axel and being a competitive tag team in WWE:

“Curtis Axel is a great, amazing human being,” Ryback said. “Working with him is the most fun I’ve had in wrestling in some time. The only positive thing from Paul Heyman was getting to be around Curtis Axel and getting that out of it. Me and Curtis go back to developmental together. I’m very happy we are getting a chance to mesh and gel on TV and come together as RybAxel.”

He also discussed his current on-screen persona alongside his Twitter rampages, which you can find more on here.

Editor’s Note:

Two interesting things to pick up on here. The first being that he disagreed with turning heel when he was red hot, which is hard to disagree with myself. The other is whether he is in character or not when talking about Heyman. Given the rest of the interview is out of character, I’d be surprised if this was too.

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