I Know How To Beat Ryback

(Column I wrote for gerweck.net)

Ryback vs. CM Punk headlines the Hell in a Cell Pay-Per-View event this Sunday. The WWE has booked themselves into a tight little corner because they played the Ryback card way too soon. In contemporary wrestling where wins and losses don’t matter, Ryback’s undefeated streak is everything. If he loses under any circumstance, the gimmick is dead and he is just another superstar on the roster.

In my opinion, let him win the title. He is over and as long as you don’t mess with his formula of destroying people, he will continue to be over for quite some time. While the common wisdom suggests Ryback must win, there has to be a creative way for him to be pinned without losing his momentum. I’m going to have a little fun with this and put on my booking hat and throw out an idea that could work.

Recreate the finish from the 1994 Royal Rumble where Yokozuna defeated The Undertaker in a Casket match with the help of 15 superstars. Ryback has CM Punk laid out in the middle of the ring. Just as he is about to pin Punk, one heel wrestler runs down to the ring as Paul Heyman breaks into the cage with bolt cutters. Ryback lays him out quickly and Heyman signals two more heels down to the ring. Ryback delivers a pair of meat hook clotheslines to knock them out of the equation. Heyman calls for three more wrestlers (3MB) and Ryback does his thing in devastating fashion.

Heyman, with a look of desperation on his face, stands in the middle of the aisle and gives the high sign as ten wrestlers storm the ring. These ten, along with the other six who came down before them, circle the ring like a vulture circles their prey. All sixteen enter the ring and Ryback fights them off for quite a while but eventually, the numbers overwhelm him. CM Punk gets back to his feet and delivers a GTS to an unconscious Ryback. Punk taunts the crowd as the sixteen wrestlers leave the Cell in single file as Heyman hands each of them a white envelope as payment. Ryback gets pinned and the next night on Raw, CM Punk has the audacity to command respect claiming he did whatever it took to retain the title in a match with no disqualification.

In order to sell the incident, Ryback needs to be completely out of the picture for the rest of the year. No medical updates, no “he’s coming back soon” vignettes, no speculation, no nothing. He makes his surprise return in the Royal Rumble match. Have the majority of the heels from Hell in a Cell incident in the ring as Ryback comes out at number 25 and viciously eliminates all of them while getting a measure of revenge in the process. Ryback wins the Rumble while Punk drops the title to The Rock.

Everyone is dying to know who Ryback will face at Wrestlemania, but the only words we should hear for him are “FEED ME PUNK.”  Eventually, it is revealed Ryback wants to fight CM Punk so badly that he is willing to forfeit his Wrestlemania main event if he can get his hands on CM Punk. Vince McMahon accepts these conditions and makes the match.

To want to beat up someone so badly that you give up the most coveted opportunity in the business would speak volumes as to how much of a badass Ryback is. The buildup for their match could consist of CM Punk talking about how stupid Ryback is for giving up the main event at Wrestlemania. Meanwhile, the locker room is convinced CM Punk is going to get the beating of his life because Ryback gave up the one thing they all dream of obtaining. Punk considers this the ultimate sign of disrespect and embarks on the most vile campaign ever seen on WWE television in order to take out Ryback before their match. April 7^th, 2013 arrives and Ryback gets his long awaited revenge.