Roman Reigns didn’t challenge Goldberg for the WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania 36.
Reigns pulled out of his match since he is immunocompromised from his battle with leukemia. Reigns was at the Performance Center when he made the call himself to pull out of the match.
WWE ended up having Braun Strowman beat Goldberg for the title at the event.
Ryback spoke about Reigns getting backlash from fans while talking with Wrestling Inc.’s Raj Giri on his Shooting Blanks Wrestling Report podcast. Here is what he had to say:
“It’s horrible and that’s that wrestling fanbase, and it’s more than wrestling, it’s a human thing that’s going on now and this is, again, social media,” Ryback said. “There’s nobody in person who is going to go up and criticize him, it doesn’t exist. It’s social media that he is getting it on, and when you’re on it you have the full spectrum. You’re essentially letting the lowest of low people that are just the least evolved, just horrible human beings. They have access to you, and no matter what you do, that’s why I said just be yourself because you are going to get love and hate no matter what.
“I’m so happy he stepped up, and a guy in that position actually doing it, but he’s in that position. Now if he didn’t have that and did it, the criticism he would get a hell of a lot more, and internally in WWE it would be a different situation. He has that though, which is they cannot do anything with him, as far as depush him or anything of that nature. He has a little bit of built-in security with that.
“But that’s wrestling fans for you, and I say fans and I’m talking about the negative ones. Those are also the same people that hate him … that don’t want him there. He does something, and he’s not there now, and the name-calling is always a go to with that portion of the people. They name-call because that is the only thing they can go to.”
