[SkintEastwood]

Vince McMahon had quite the hard on for Brian 'Crush' Adams in the 1990's, giving him several pushes and characters. But nobody gave a fuck due to the man putting on boring matches and mediocre promos. He had a decent look, some good moves and was quick when not bulked up. Yet he rarely worked an average match, even with guys like HBK and the Steiners. Ryback has a more marketable look and physique, not to mention better promo skills. Unfortunately audiences demand more thesedays and Ryback's singles performances are sleep inducing at this point in time.

Crush timeline
1990 - Demoliton Crush
1992 - Hawaii Babyface Crush
1993 - Japanese Heel Crush
1996 - Criminal Crush (after spending time away from wwe due to a run in with the law)
1997 - Biker Gang Leader Crush

Ryback timeline
2010 - Skip Sheffield
2012 - Undefeated streak Ryback
2013 - Heel Bully Ryback
???? - ?????

What will the next gimmick be?
Terminator gimmick in WWE
Re-defining his Skip Sheffield character
Gay Psycho :

Probably all three before 2017

 

[Booker T Sucka]

FEED ME MORE ROIDS!!!!!

 

[Lumpy McRighteous]

Except Ryback actually got seriously over during his face run, which is impressive considering he faced waves of unfunny smarks and the challenge of winning over the valued child-range audience. He accomplished the latter and even won over a few members of the former category along the way (myself included) and then he was derailed by VINTAGE insipid, shoddy writing and booking. His bully gimmick saved him and proved to be effective in that he has shown more personality and even made unintentionally hilarious bits, such as this gem:

. Now the real question is whether Vince will save him from being derailed yet again since he's everything Vince busts a nut over and because Ryback has the look and enough ability to be a marketable star.

 

[Simpsons Modern Life]

Yeah, I wouldn't have really thought about putting these two in comparison to be honest, Ryback has definitely had a lot against him to prove, where as Crush was just there in the midst of things, he never really had the criticism to face off with that Ryback currently gets.

I do think Ryback has developed character since his heel turn (goes to show how booking can hold people back, which is what I think is happening to Curtis Axel at the moment), with Ryback's clip above and also like this one :

He's definitely coming back strong against the critics, and not allowing this whole 'Goldberg' or 'You can't wrestle chants' get to him, I've even heard the odd Ultimate Warrior comparison being thrown against him too, where as Crush never had this kind of distraction to face off against, although I do see what you mean about the amount of pushes that he got.

Thing is, if creative see talent and potential in someone, they will utilize them and rightly so, it's all about finding the right character for them sometimes and then letting them go from there, where as other times they hit the nail on the head, for example with Mr Perfect, that character was perfect for him (no pun intended), where as sometimes they need to go through a few gimmicks before they find the right persona for a character, hence why it sometimes seems as though certain talents get more pushes, it's just they experiment more with character development that's all

 

[SinJackal]

Nobody gave a shit about Ryback? Seriously? He was easily one of the most over wrestlers on the roster until WWE forced him to turn heel. And that's even despite WWE jobbing him over two dozen times for five straight months to The Shield. He was still heavily cheered and popped. I would say nice job revising history, but it wasn't. You just said the opposite of reality, not even subtle.

He's been booked like shit ever since his initial fued with CM Punk a year ago. That was the only time he was booked particularly strong, and of course, he lost anyway. His booking has been all downhill ever since, filled with rampant losing, shitty gimmicks, being beaten down and put through tables (getting no revenge on it), even more shitty gimmicks, being banned from posting on twitter (at least twice), and being forced to do demeaning shit like cry on tv and flee from matches with the likes of Justin Gabriel and The Miz because "the pain was too much for him".

It's astounding how some piss chuggers think Ryback has had some kind of strong push just because he's been booked to job to CM Punk and Cena a bunch of times. He's a jacked wrestler with a very intimidating look who whether you want to admit it or not, had never produced a shitty buyrate yet when main eventing. His only "lower than the year before" buyrates were when he was measured against Brock Lesnar's return match against Cena, and a Vince McMahon match which he only drew like 7k less buys than anyway. His other main events outdrew the year prior. And that's despite not being built up at all for those PPVs besides one or two token wins over a midcarder.

The peak of Ryback's booking is being used as a jobber filler for guys he's never booked to have a chance against. It's solely WWE trying to capitalize on Ryback's looks to make their set in stone, never loses to anyone main guys look better. Those matches have clearly not been meant to get Ryback over. Very evident by how they booked Ryback immediately after all of those matches. Five month long burial by The Shield (rookies), Cryback burial gimmick, randomly tapping out on Raw for no reason, etc. I can only imagine what embarrassing shit is in store for Ryback now that his fued with Punk is over. Right back to the bottom of the pile again until WWE needs a cheap jobber they haven't even worked on building to job to some overpushed assclown in a filler fued.