Ryback Comments on NXT Moving Out of Full Sail and How Much Longer Chris Jericho Has In Wrestling

Ryback was recently joined on his Big Guy podcast with Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc and spoke about the ratings war between NXT and AEW.

Ryback had the following to say regarding the statement WWE made before AEW and NXT went to war on Wednesday Nights.

“WWE is looking pretty good with their, ‘this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon’ line now. This is very early on and I’ve talked about it where everything AEW is doing is going to take time. This is what WWE did with the whole Survivor Series thing and putting the NXT roster over on the main roster to elevate. It didn’t necessarily help the main roster but it did give NXT a boost and it might have been just enough for people to watch the main shows that are now watching Wednesdays and are now beating AEW. I will give them credit. It is a great move on it because they are making it as difficult as they can with NXT before they have to use the main shows for that.

Ryback also commented on Chris Jericho’s star power in AEW and how they need to use his name value as much as possible but also build stars at the same time.

“I want them to succeed at this because the guys they have, they have to elevate these young guys. But there’s such a gap when you have Jungle Boy vs Chris Jericho. I tip my cap in how beautifully that was done and Chris Jericho is such a great heel and the way they put that whole thing together where it established that Chris Jericho could have beaten him whenever he wanted to early on. But he chose to be that piece of s**t in the ring and keep going and then Jungle Boy being that babyface and fighting underneath it and showing some life and coming back and then Jericho wanting five more minutes just to beat the st out of him and then Jungle Boy almost getting him again and Jericho walking off; that was fantastic. That was pro wrestling at its finest and I love that, but I do think that there is such a wide gap between Jungle Boy and Chris Jericho where there is such a disconnect with people watching that even though they did that as great as they could have and there are other parts of the show where there are gaps. They are doing the best as they can, but I just want them to get more stars.”

Ryback did state however that Jericho is past his prime but also praised his AEW work as well and is an all-time great in wrestling:

“I think physically and I look at the show and I ask myself whether Chris Jericho has another year in him. I don’t know because he is going hard in life and this is at the end of him going hard his entire career. Chris Jericho’s body has altered with the last six months in my opinion,” stated Ryback. “The guy is a f***ing legend, but the stress he is going through, at this stage of his career they have put everything on his shoulders with not a lot of surrounding pieces as far as what he has achieved in pro wrestling.

Jon Moxley is great but none of us have had the tenure that Jericho has and the longevity and you look at the guy’s body to me it looks like his body is starting to break down now. He held it together for so long and still looks physically amazing and he can still go but you don’t want to keep that stress on him for a long period of time because you want to get more out of him because he has a lot on his shoulders. He is the man, I love Chris. I just bought some of his ‘Bubbly’ but you need to give the guy some help with the pieces that they do have.”

Credit Ryback and the Big Guy Podcast, and H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.

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