Wrong Turn: 5 Mistakes WWE Has Made at Survivor Series

Survivor Series 2012 – Not having Ryback defeat CM Punk and John Cena for the WWE Title

I fully expect to be alone on this one, but please, hear me out. When Ryback first showed up on WWE television, I, as did most, saw him as a cheap attempt to recapture some of the Goldberg hype from years past. I especially despised the handicap matches against random jobbers during his build, feeling it did more to hinder Ryback than it did help, since nobody put any stock into those wins outside of the commentary team. And the majority of the WWE Universe seemed to agree, as Ryback wasn’t received very well to begin with.

So, many were confused when Ryback went from a non-title win over then Intercontinental champion The Miz, to confronting WWE Champion CM Punk later in the same night on one episode of RAW. However, a strange thing happened when Ryback was put inside the ring with Punk – the WWE audience took notice of Ryback in a more serious light, and Ryback suddenly became VERY over. Go back and watch those segments if you can find them online, Ryback had a large portion of support, obviously many Punk fans weren’t going to convert, but Ryback was getting what seemed to be a large portion of the John Cena fan base, and I truly believe he would have been accepted as a Champion by a large enough segment of the audience to be successful.

Now, this would have affected Punk’s record modern reign, and they clearly weren’t willing to interrupt that on his march towards eventually dropping the title to The Rock. Also, I’m not complaining that The Shield got their debut out of this decision. I’m mainly saying that the payoff with Rock/Cena wasn’t needed in almost anyone’s eyes, and WWE had a rare opportunity fall into their hands with Ryback, and instead of running with it, they swerved him, and looking back, the decisions made in just a couple months then ruined Ryback for the better part of the following year.