On his latest podcast, Ryback gave a 35-minute rebuttal to Mark Henry’s response to him calling the business fake. Click here to read what Ryback and Henry said previously to each other.
Here is an excerpt: “I wish, with Mark, and we’ve heard him talk. I love Mark. He talks about being a mentor to the talent and a coach. He’s in the G.O.A.T. of weight lifting and I’ve looked up to Mark in that aspect of things for many, many years. If you followed me and watched my stories, I would feel as a peer to somebody who used to help put the guy’s straps on because his shoulders were so shot before we would work, that we would be on a good enough relationship where, when that tweet got spun a different way which was never intended, which I apologize to the people it offended, the wrestlers, specifically people that came before me. I am very respectful of them and everything that’s gone into the business that got it here to this day.
Why wouldn’t Mark just DM me and say, ‘Hey, can we talk. I want to have a conversation with you about the tweet.’ It didn’t have to get tied into what’s going on with WWE and with him bringing up this stuff that’s not true. That, I think, is what I am most hurt over and I put out my statement and the more I listened to it, I listened to it several times the night I put out those tweets, and I’m mad. It hurt because I was like, what the f**k is going on? I talked to many talents where they go, what the f**k is going on? Is he WWE office now and they are using him for this? I wish he would have just had a private phone call about the matter before we went that route. Jim Cornette, I expect that from Jim. Mark, I thought we were better, knowing me and working with me enough, that this could have been handled differently where it didn’t need to get to this. I have to explain everything so everybody understands all of it. Booker T put out his comments. I thought Booker did a fantastic job of expressing, his, and I can see and hear in his voice the disappointment of using the word fake and how an outsider would use it, but he never took any personal shots or anything of that matter.
Mark is respected and I don’t want to turn this into me vs Mark. It’s me vs WWE. It was never me bashing the wrestling industry. I know with this legal stuff going on and they are not doing well in the Ryback trademark. What a shi**y thing to spin it that I am difficult and dangerous. Let’s put this out there as this guy is ready to come back with 16 stem cells to overcome this five disk fusion and shoulder replacement. I don’t understand that and why we didn’t handle this in a more, behind the scenes way. I think in this day and age, another point I want to bring up is every podcast exposes pro wrestling including theirs every day. It’s 2021. The word props has been used by people like Bruce Prichard who has used it. I’ve heard different trainers, and I’m not going to name everybody’s name. I’ve heard people in the business refer to them as props. All championships are props and it is not being used by me in a negative way. That’s what they are but that is not saying that the championships don’t have meaning. They do. It’s not belittling the working and the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to win that. But every UFC championship are props. It’s business marketing 101. You start a company and then you have these championships, or props as you want to call them. It doesn’t mean they don’t mean anything. That’s just a name for them on top of it. Sometimes, like in Mark’s case, I understand why Mark also could have taken it so personally getting fu**ked with a lot during his career and the bulls**t he put up with and the time on the road that he put in.
Big Show and Mark Henry are two special attractions that should have been protected their entire careers. He’s one of the rarest human beings that probably ever existed…We’ve heard the story on how he finally got to the championship with the Hall of Pain but the lead into that to be put in the ring and Vince fu**king with him and people fu**king him and not respecting him and him losing his sh*t and going off and saying f**k it and wanting to quit. They put him in that title match. All I ask Mark to understand is knowing my story and how important that was to me and with my goals on the short time span I think I had with my injuries with everything, that if Mark had that match where he shows up to the building and they finally put the championship on him, which they probably should have many years prior and he got there and they said you are losing. He loses and he does his job as we all do because we are all professionals and his career comes to an end shortly thereafter because of a career-ending injury and he has to leave. I wouldn’t call Mark’s career a failure because he showed up to the building and the promoter and the people in charge didn’t have him winning the championship. That’s what I took a little bit of an issue with and took it personal where he tried to call me a failure because there’s a lot of people who have given everything to this business, Hall of Famers, legends, that have never won the championship.
I can see if I had a goal of winning the championship. I was very vocal of that goal. That did not happen, so in that sense, can you say I failed? Yes. But you need to understand the circumstances that caused me to walk away and this whole thing has gotten far uglier than it ever should have been…I think you have to understand that championships have different meaning for different people in the business. We’ve heard people like Scott Hall say, and I’m not getting the numbers correct, but, ‘Would you rather make 10 million dollars a year for 10 years and never win a championship or make $100,00 a year for 10 years and be the champ the whole time?’ I think you’re going to find wrestlers that will say they want the $100,000 and the championship, and I think you are going to want the 10 million dollars because we all have different mindsets on how we approach the business…I’ve adopted the mindset that whatever role they asked me to play, I’m going to give it everything I got. Whether I have all the momentum and it makes sense for me to go out there and ‘win’, or if we are going to make three new main eventers with The Shield, if I’m going to put over John Cena at the time, or I’m going to put over Mark Henry in a match at WrestleMania and fall on my face and look like a failure, echo the words of Vince, which he did, that I’m going to go out there and do it, even if I don’t agree with it because that is what you do as a professional and I’ve always done that. That to me is what I took a little bit of offense over with Mark saying that I was a failure…There is a reason why they (WWE) wanted my social media which is thriving in other places they don’t have control of and this is a very real issue. I find it very coincidental that this got tied into a wrestling industry thing when it’s not. It’s me vs WWE and whether you thought the joke was funny or not, everyone is going to have their opinion on it, but you gotta understand, this isn’t a guy who is new to the business. I’m going to point this out. Mark defended Ronda Rousey. When Ronda did her whole fake thing with the business, and it’s on their show. So you have to ask yourself, why did he take that so personal, but from a guy 16 years in the business, who’s won a championship match he was in, a match Mark was in with me at the Elimination Chamber, that he failed to mention that. Why is that his take on this and that wasn’t his take on that. That’s all I’m going to say. And again, with the personal stuff with this, this could all be hashed out with a phone call and Mark knows that.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Ryback Show with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
