Ryback claims he could have brought WWE to its knees as they 'tried to fire me' after ankle injury

Ryback has claimed that the WWE "tried to fire" him when he was still recovering from an ankle injury when performing under the Skip Sheffield gimmick in 2011. The Big Guy quit from the wrestling entertainment company in August.

The former WWE superstar on the latest episode of Conversations with The Big Guy podcast said John Laurinaitis called him an hour after he had surgery on his injured ankle and asked him how he was. Ryback said he sensed from the conversation that the WWE was going to fire him. A couple of months later he got another call from Laurinaitis who he claimed tried to fire him.

"I was in Gold's Gym in St Petersburg, Florida. I get a call from John Laurinaitis and he tried to fire me while I'm still f****d up with my ankle injury, and I have to stop and cut a 20-minute promo on him, how he's not firing me and telling him everything that I've been through," Ryback said. (Via Wrestling Edge)

"I had to get attorneys and look into all of this at this time because now I knew they just tried to fire me. So then, the next step was then to try to put me in developmental again and leave me in developmental rather than bring me back to the main roster because before, I was on the main roster."

The 35-year-old wrestler also said he could have brought the WWE to its knees by suing them for how they handled his injury.

"I never had to wrestle another day in my life if I didn't want to. The lawsuit we could have brought to WWE could have brought them to their f*****g knees based on the ankle and how this was handled from beginning to end," he said.

"Deep down I knew that by getting attorneys and fending for myself and having the courage to have an opportunity to live my dream, they were forever going to f**k with me. So that is what I was playing with my entire career."

"They can deny this all they want, but this is the f*****g truth. They wanted to f**k with me based on everything from that."