Zack Ryder Deserves Better

Zack Ryder has put in the hard work to get himself over with the WWE fans, and yet he is continuously booked poorly after winning the Intercontinental Championship.

One of the more popular internet memes shows the bank manager from South Park who talks about the investments being made with Stan’s money and IT’S GONE! That’s sort of how the WWE creative team handled Zack Ryder after WrestleMania.

We’re finally going to give a Ryder the Intercontinental Championship, maybe allow him some more time on television, maybe a few feu—AND IT’S GONE! Just like that. About 24 hours after winning the ladder match in surprising fashion, he loses the belt to the Miz. If it was anyone else, this column would have a slightly different tone.

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There are some similarities between Zack Ryder and the Miz – both had very big pushes as champions and then sort of fell deep down the card. Granted, the Miz has had a few more mid-card title reigns, while Ryder has sort of had to put himself over just to get attention on the obscure broadcasts of Main Event and Superstars.

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However, Zack Ryder deserves plenty of credit for being able to handle the move to NXT and started to develop a pretty good tag team with Moho Rawley. Sure, it was expected we would have seen the tag team brought up to the main roster as a way for Ryder to revitalize his career. The man deserves the opportunity to do so considering that he’s done everything he could ever since WWE decided to drop his YouTube show Z! True Long Island Story.

At age 30, Ryder needs to start getting the opportunities to show he belongs on the main roster since he’s been under a WWE contract since 2005 with Deep South Wrestling and was a Major Brother with Curt Hawkins. Despite not being given the most consistent singles push during the last few years, he’s done well promoting himself with about 1.86 million followers on Twitter – and earned the right to name himself the Internet Champion.

He’s done everything he possibly could to get noticed and it looked like the WWE was finally going to reward him with claiming the Intercontinental Championship and allow him to have a lengthy run with what fans would hope would be treated like the prestigious strap it was billed during the heyday of WWE’s popularity. Why else would the people in charge of booking allow him that memorable moment with his dad in the ring after winning?

But no. The WWE decided he was going to be a transitional champion and now the belt has been handed off like it was in a game of hot potato. Just when it was getting interesting with Kevin Owens holding the Intercontinental Championship that the belt was going to be involved in some great feud. Instead, it’s being held by the Miz after he won the rematch against Ryder on SmackDown on Thursday.

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It’s a shame because it is just another example of the WWE not handling talents properly. If they were going to have Ryder go on another losing streak on television, then why have him even win the IC title in the first place? At this point, Ryder fans went from “Woo Woo Woo” to “Boo Hoo Hoo.”