Ryback on Not Wanting to Be Paired Up With Paul Heyman, His 2015 WWE Contract Talks Breaking Down

– During a recent appearance on The Angle Podcast, former WWE Superstar Ryback discussed his run in WWE, not liking being paired up with Paul Heyman as his manager, and more. Below are some highlights (h/t WrestlingInc.com).

Ryback on how he didn’t want to be paired up with Paul Heyman in WWE: “I think Paul’s great, as far as maybe promos. I didn’t want to do it at the time, I didn’t care. I’m not friends with Paul. I’m very honest and I like good people. I didn’t want a mouthpiece, I could talk. I didn’t want to be a part of it. I filled a spot for CM Punk but it was never long term. It was keep Paul on TV and his thing with Curtis Axel ran out shorter than he was expecting. There was never an explanation. It was never we’re putting you with Paul and this is the goal. They don’t know any of that there.”

On his tag team with Curtis Axel: “I had a lot more fun tagging with Curtis Axel, although that was my quote ‘punishment period’ where Curtis took all of the jobs on matches. We were in England and Paul was in the ring and we watched from the monitor and he kind of buried us on TV like he was done with us. We weren’t even told that was happening we just knew he was going to the ring by himself that night.”

Ryback on his contract talks with WWE and a handshake deal on a WWE title run: “So my contract stuff had been going on for quite some time. The Intercontinental Championship got pulled off early because I didn’t sign the contract they offered. What they’ll do is put the title on you and then offer you a new contract. From a psychological standpoint a lot of people will sign that contract. So when I didn’t they cut my title run short because I was not happy with a lot of the things in there. We agreed to new figures and came to a deal, but I wasn’t going to sign over what they wanted me to sign over. That caused a major roadblock. It went from me and Vince on a handshake with the new contract to be a heel in trunks, which would lead to a WWE Championship run. So when the roadblock occurred it got (demoted) down to the US Title. So they do that to punish you and sign the contract. I didn’t sign the contract on that so it then became putting over Kalisto.”