Since leaving WWE last year, Ryback has been a vocal critic of the company on numerous occasions, but "The Big Guy" rang in 2017 with some scathing accusations regarding a medical malpractice suit, and outright stating that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon lied to him.
Ryback discussed the topic at length during the latest episode of his Conversations With the Big Guy podcast.
Ryback, who legally changed his name to Ryback Reeves late last year, said McMahon lied to him prior to his third ankle surgery:
"This was another moment I’ll never forget of him lying to me was at Extreme Rules, the one where Kharma debuted at in Tampa, Florida [May 1, 2011], back however many years ago. He sees me, this was before my third surgery, he comes up to me and we had a nice little lengthy discussion and he goes, ‘I’ll never give up on you.’ He goes, ‘we’re going to get through this together.’ He goes, ‘I don’t have anybody like you. You’re going to make me a lot of money.’ He goes, ‘you know how to get over,’ and he goes, ‘that’s something that not everybody knows.’ And he goes, ‘I’m going to allow you to make me a lot of money and I’m never going to give up on you,’ were his exact words. And then, they gave up on me.”
Ryback went on to say that he intended to file a medical malpractice suit against the doctor who performed the surgery, but that WWE persuaded him to drop it. According to Ryback, he was contacted by Jane Geddes, the WWE VP of Talent Relations at the time:
"She finally gives me a call that I was waiting for because now I know I’m playing with the devil on every step of the way now from this point forward, and she tells me, ‘Ryan, this phone call is off the record’ and I go, ‘okay’ and she goes, ‘do you want your standing in this company to remain good? Do you want your push to continue?’ was essentially what she told me. And I said, ‘yes, of course, why wouldn’t it?’ She goes, ‘we need you to drop the lawsuit against Dr. Herscovici immediately.’ And so, this was a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, not against the WWE. It was against the doctor who did this surgery to me that caused all this damage that was an open and shut case from everything I was told from my team of attorneys. And I’m so angry with myself looking back at all of this, that I didn’t trust my instinct. Any time I’ve trusted my instinct, I’m fine. And, but, you have to remember, so she essentially just threatened me with my push and everything going on, getting the chance to live my dream, money, finally, at this point, I’m making really good money now and everything, so they waited till just the right time.”
Ryback added that, once the statute of limitations on the lawsuit expired, his push went away:
"The moment I agreed to, ‘okay, I will drop the lawsuit,’ and the moment that lawsuit expired, is when they started really f–king with me. Yes, where you saw that stop-and-go and you saw the seven straight losses. This is why it’s so in-depth with me, so deep, and so personal, and because not only did they just f–k with me from a creative standpoint, they cost me security for the rest of my life, something I had a right to follow through with based on what this guy did to me, the pain this f–king guy caused in me having to overcome all of this, and me trusting them to get an opportunity. And all I asked them was for an opportunity to let me go out there and get over.”
Ryback has been writing a motivational book, which will be available on Amazon on Monday, January 9.
