Ryback Responds to MJF's Insult From AEW Dynamite

By Connor Casey

MJF cut yet another promo on CM Punk this week's AEW Dynamite ahead of his Dynamite Diamond Ring victory over Dante Martin. Friedman once again brought up Punk's WWE past and his (in MJF's opinion) "lackluster" run in AEW so far, saying, "I didn't realize, that having an undefeated streak in a string of underwhelming matches against underwhelming opponents made you championship material. I thought that just made you the new Ryback."

Wrestling fans will undoubtedly remember that Ryback went on an undefeated run in the early 2010s that led to him feuding with Punk over the WWE Championship. Fans may also recall that Punk verbally bashed Ryback for being an unsafe worker during his infamous Art of Wrestling podcast interviews in late 2014. The former Intercontinental Champion was released by the WWE in 2016 and hasn't wrestled a match since 2018, though he did respond to Friedman on Twitter while simultaneously taking a shot at Punk's UFC career. 

"Thanks for the shoutout @The_MJF," he wrote. "Now you have your big chance at being an enhancement talent working with an underwhelming opponent. #FeedMeMore."

Punk discussed his program with MJF and his slow burn in AEW so far during a C2E2 panel this past weekend. 

"I think that's one matchup that everybody wanted to see," Punk said. "Before I even came back, I always heard about 'oh, I want to see MJF and CM Punk go back and forth.' A lot of people think I am off to a slow start and AEW doing certain things a certain way. But to me, just like Adam Cole just said, there's five years worth of stuff with all these interchangeable characters and players. MJF is definitely somebody I wanted to share a ring with. I think now that we're getting to it, people kind of can maybe see the bigger picture. And they can trust AEW as a whole for like the direction of where stuff goes.

"The fans I understand they want to know the behind the scene stuff. They want to peel back the curtain. Everybody's an armchair booker. I am. Everybody's an armchair coach or quarterback or whatever. That's human nature. You watch sports and you're like, ' Oh come on, why did you put that guy in? Why is he in the bench? Why is this guy a healthy scratch? Why didn't you do this? blah, blah, blah. And it's no different than I think pro wrestling and the fans," he added. "To me one of the best things about AEW is we enjoy payoffs. We like making the fans happy instead of just for some reason making them miserable. Doing stuff just to piss them off. Sometimes the happiest outcome is the most obvious one. We don't really feel the need to beat anybody over the head with switching it just because they figured it out first, you know? I enjoy making the fans happy. The juice for being a pro wrestler is getting reactions out of the crowd. When it comes to me and him, without me trying to say anything too positive about him — you ain't seen nothing yet."

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