On the recent episode of his podcast "Conversations with the Big Guy", Ryback spoke about his ankle injury in 2010 and the way it was treated by his former employers, the WWE.
The injury occurred when Ryback was a part of Nexus in 2010. He said that he broke his ankle a few times in a match after taking a bunch of dropkicks. Even though he knew about his busted ankle, Ryback continued to perform, making the injury far worse in the process.
After consulting the trainer, who's since been fired by the company, Ryback was referred to an unknown surgeon, who has been charged with ten pending lawsuits concerning malpractice.
Ryback got the surgery which involved getting a foot long metal rod inserted into his leg, which he later found out he didn't need at all. He found himself in excruciating pain, but all his complaints were not resolved.
The reason for this pain was that the surgeon had inserted the metal rod into his nerves below the knee, and on top of that, he had inserted it the wrong way, scraping away at some tissue, which would lead to other problems.
The bone healed eventually, but he still couldn't walk. Ryback kept complaining about this issue to the physiotherapist, but he did nothing about it.
After getting diagnosed by Dr Andrews in Birmingham, Ryback got the rod removed. During this time cuts were initiated in the WWE, and Ryback was sure that he was going to get axed in the process. So, Ryback to save himself from getting fired, talked to John Laurinaitis and also got himself an attorney to scope out his options.
Ryback, while still being healed, met Triple H who hinted that they might "pull the plug" on him soon.
The WWE, however, instead of firing him tried sending him back to developmental and cut his pay. He requested a leave from Triple H to go back to his home in Las Vegas, and after a few months put him on the road as ‘Ryback’ (instead of Skip Sheffield ).
Ever since that incident, Ryback realised that Vince McMahon and Triple H were never completely behind him due to this entire fiasco surrounding the injury. Ryback considers this event to be one of the factors in him leaving the company later.
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