Since returning from leg and knee injuries, WWE superstar Ryback has steamrolled the competition.

In a matter of months, he found himself one of the most popular superstars in WWE. Now fans are able to dominate their own adversaries in THQ’s WWE ’13 by playing as the wrecking machine in videogame form.

Ryback joins Tensai, Drew McIntyre, Yoshi Tatsu, AJ Lee and Natalya in the second downloadable content pack. In the world of WWE, you haven’t made it, until you’re a featured character in one of its highly successful videogames.

“It’s great,” Ryback said. “It was just one of my many goals that I had coming back. It would have been nice to actually have been on this one. I felt I should have been, but I know they make that list I think before I was even back. So I understand that, but being a DLC is quite the accomplishment. So I’m pretty happy with that.

“…Everything takes time. I knew I was going to catch on right away, but it does take time to get going. It is good people anticipated and wanted to see me on it, and WWE and THQ gave them that. So that is always great to see.”

Lucky for the game’s design team, the intimidating figure is satisfied with the finished result. Even though there will be a few members of the WWE Universe disappointed in the absence of “Feed Me More” chants.

“I would say I was maybe a little more jacked, but other than that, it’s very realistic,” Ryback said. “I was quite happy to see it.”

As a lifelong fan living in Las Vegas, Ryback, real name Ryan Reeves’ love of wrestling games reverts to Nintendo and “Pro Wrestling,” which was released in 1987.

“It was with Starman,” Ryback said. “It was a very basic wrestling game because I had been into them growing up and since Nintendo.”

Ryback’s early memories of WWE include seeing Andre “the Giant” and Hulk Hogan at around five or six. Friends got him into sports entertainment again in his early teens. He has been obsessed ever since. So much, in fact, that a 13-year-old Ryback entered and won a contest from his local news station that awarded him a slot as guest bell ringer the next time WWE was in town.

“I had to write a letter to the news on why I loved wrestling, why I wanted to be a wrestler, who I wanted to meet, etc.,” Ryback said. “I had won probably around 20 something tickets through the news contest and all the radio contests in town. I took all my neighborhood friends and went to the show that day. I got to be the guest bell ringer and got to go in the ring before the show when they announced my name. That was probably the exact point where I knew this was pretty cool and that I could do this one day.

“I believe it was Dr. Tom Prichard and Chris Candido of the Bodydonnas versus Barry Horowitz and somebody else. That was the match I was the guest bell ringer. I think the main event that night was Bret Hart versus Diesel in the steel cage.”

Ryback, nicknamed the Silverback for his physical stature, had an athletic background in baseball and football. His first shot at WWE came while attending the University of Nevada when he entered the WWE’s Tough Enough reality show competition for a guaranteed contract. He made it to the finals but came up short.