A former WWE star has revealed how a last-minute change by Vince McMahon forced them to scrap an entire promo just minutes before an episode of Raw went on the air.
The segment took place on the May 20, 2013 edition of Raw during Ryback‘s rivalry with John Cena. According to Ryback, in a post on his Twitter account, he had spent hours memorising a promo earlier in the day, only to learn shortly before the broadcast that WWE had completely changed direction. Writing on social media, Ryback explained that he was called into Vince McMahon’s office roughly 45 minutes before the show began and informed that the original promo had been thrown out.
“What most people don’t know is that I had originally been given a completely different promo earlier in the day and spent hours memorising it,” Ryback wrote.
He said WWE’s writing team quickly handed him several pages of new material before sending him to the ambulance used in the show’s opening segment. With only minutes remaining before Raw went live, Ryback found himself sitting in a dark ambulance attempting to study the rewritten script using the light from his mobile phone. Realising there was no realistic way to memorise the new material in time, he decided to abandon the script entirely.
“At that point, I knew there was no way I was memorising any of it,” Ryback recalled. “So I made a decision. I tossed the papers aside and told myself, ‘Just go out there and talk.'”
The segment saw Ryback emerge from the ambulance and challenge Cena to an Ambulance Match at the upcoming Payback premium live event. He delivered the promo while standing on top of the vehicle and largely improvised his remarks in front of a live television audience.
Ryback Believes His Unscripted Promo After Vince McMahon Threw Out The Original Scripts Was One Of His Best Moments In Wrestling
More than a decade later, Ryback described the experience as one of the proudest moments of his WWE career. While he admitted the situation initially felt like a setup for failure, he believes it ultimately gave him an opportunity to prove to himself that he could perform under extreme pressure.
“Pressure doesn’t build character. It reveals it,” Ryback wrote.
