By Joshua Waddles
14 May 2021
Social media can be a cruel place for wrestlers. While normal trolls on Twitter have no problem at all inciting the angry reaction they seek, the destruction of kayfabe has left heels struggling to generate the boos and negative feedback they need in order to make viewers root for the good guy during matches. But independent wrestling star “The Big Guy” (also known as former WWE star Ryback) came up with the sort of bait Twitter simply couldn’t resist.
In April, Ryback posted a poll on what his next career move should be. The poll options included AEW, WWE/NXT, Impact or Retire. Nearly 30,000 fans voted and Ryback posted the results on 9 May.
After blocking the “troll” votes, Ryback soon created a new poll, posting interactions with fans and further insisting the previous “Retire” vote occurred as a result of fraudulent voting. Ryback claims to have made multiple polls, but only the results of the first are currently available on his Twitter timeline. Since 9 May, the wrestler has quote-tweeted several fans who invited him to retire or called him out for making multiple polls.
It should be noted that after his departure from the WWE in 2016, he made only infrequent appearances on the independent wrestling circuit. Yet he’s kept busy with his new business, Feed Me More Nutrition, which promotes vegan-friendly health products. The poll(s) hinted at his return to the ring and rumors prior to the first poll indicate a strong possibility.
If his goal is to use Twitter to generate heat for an in-ring return as a heel, however, he’s likely to find some difficulty getting the fans to boo him if he keeps tweeting stories like this.
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