wrestling / News

Ryback Says People Aren’t Happy With How Vince McMahon’s Doing Business, Hopes AEW Cancels Double or Nothing If Pandemic Doesn’t Improve

April 27, 2020 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas

Ryback weighed in on Vince McMahon’s recent business moves and AEW moving ahead with Double or Nothing on his podcast. Ryback talked about McMahon in the wake of the XFL declaring bankruptcy and reacted to how, despite McMahon saying on calls that WWE and the XFL were separate, the bankrupcty filing confirmed that WWE had 23.5% of the class B shares in the league. He also talked about how he wasn’t pleased that AEW is set to hold Double or Nothing live on May 23rd as scheduled, albeit in an empty arena and not in Las Vegas. You can see the highlights and full clip below:

On the effects of the XFL filing for bankruptcy: “A lot of people I know aren’t happy with the way he [Vince McMahon]’s going about business right now. And that’s why I said, this is one of those situations. This virus is changing things drastically. And like, the bigger you are, the harder you can fall with all of this. The fact that he’s lied doesn’t look good. And once you start lying to people, it’s really hard to distinguish then, when you are telling the truth or when you’re lying to them further? And I think this is opening up a bigger can of worms than even Vince McMahon can handle.”

On AEW holding Double or Nothing on May 23rd as scheduled: “We’ve talked about it, because I’ve seen people when I put out things, and we’ve talked about both [AEW and WWE]. I’m not happy, but I’m glad they’re at least taking the lead, and taking some time off to sort things out. I’m hoping that if maybe this is a best case scenario where they’re — you can go either way with this. That they’re announcing it, but if things are worse or bad still, then they cancel it leading up to the thing. And then no harm no foul. Or you could say, ‘Well, let’s just cancel it right now,’ and then maybe… if it’s looking good prior, then ‘Okay, we’re gonna do this show still, even if it’s not a public show. You could always announce that.

“I think they’re just maybe looking at as, from a business standpoint, advertising it hoping everything improves. And then no harm, no foul. And then everything, it was just they were anticipating things getting better. But again, that was going to depend on how they handled this leading up to it. If things are not better, I would hope that for the sake of the talent they choose not to do it. I don’t think anyone’s gonna be upset at it. And both — everything else is just not putting people in jeopardy until more is known, and wrestling has kinda gone the other way. I don’t understand it.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Conversations With the Big Guy with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.