Watching a few random videos on YouTube took me back to when Zack Ryder was really popular when he was doing his long Island iced Z thing and his YouTube channel chasing the United States belt from Dolf Ziggler at the time with his online petition. 

He got himself really over with the fans (me included!!) and I was really impressed with the way he did that because he pretty much made the WWE feature him more because of his popularity. 

I remember a match on Raw when John Laurinitus made a match between John Cena & Zack Ryder and the audience was far more in favor with Ryder than Cena. Obviously the whole Cena/Ryder/Eve & Kane thing resulted in Zack looking like a fool and he was kinda buried after that apart from the 6 man Intercontinental Championship Match which he won at Mania and then dropped it a day after which I never understood as the fans loved the fact he won it. 

Anyway do you think Ryder could have been a main player if injuries etc hadn't have prevented it? I honestly think that he could have and been on a par with Cena if given the opportunity. 

What are your thoughts and opinions on Ryder in general? 

I don't think he could have gone beyond upper mid card. He did very well for himself by creating a niche with his long island iced thing, and that will keep him over and employed with the WWE for a long time.

A successful one dimensional gimmick like his is the starting point to creating a more complex character that might be able to push onto main event level, and Zack Ryder has never been given that chance so we will never really know if he would have succeeded.

I don't think he presents himself as more than a stereotype long island guy, and that will limit his opportunities.

All I wanted was for Ryder to be a good mid-card babyface. Instead, they made him look like a joke.

No, but he deserved better.

What made Zack work is that fans could relate to him. Not everything came naturally to his character, he had to scratch and claw for every victory. Instead of whining about it, Ryder found humour in the situation. This made him more endearing to the fans and when he started to win more matches fans were on board.

Before it went anywhere, he was jobbed out. First they fed him to Kane so Cena could beat him on his way to facing The Rock and then he lost to Lauranaitis' team so he could have more heat moving forward.

The biggest challenge for Ryder would have been transitioning from the Jersey Shore gimmick into something else. That gimmick was always going to date him and prevent him from having any longevity in the company.

I don't think he'd have ever made it to the top of the card, but the guy should absolutely be a mainstay in the midcard title scene.

Now that I think about it, he actually might've been world champ if they'd kept him hot given who's currently holding the belt.

I had never thought of this, but Ryder's biggest obstacle was Santino Marella.

Ryder appeared destined to win the belt back from Swagger, but then Santino got over at the 2012 Elimination Chamber and they made the switch. I groaned when I was reminded about that because I have no recollection of Santino's run. However, Santino was inexplicably over and I remember his face off against Bryan was the highlight of a fairly lackluster PPV.

I don't get Zack Ryder, he's a guy that looks like a Hollywood A-Lister, with a million dollar body - yet works this god awful, goofy gimmick. Come on, I'm sure they could do something completely different with this guy.

Oct 16, 2017 2:24:53 GMT Big Pete said:

I had never thought of this, but Ryder's biggest obstacle was Santino Marella.

Ryder appeared destined to win the belt back from Swagger, but then Santino got over at the 2012 Elimination Chamber and they made the switch. I groaned when I was reminded about that because I have no recollection of Santino's run. However, Santino was inexplicably over and I remember his face off against Bryan was the highlight of a fairly lackluster PPV.

Santino was definitely a better character and probably arguably worker than Zack, so no harm/foul/loss there.

Santino had also been in that spot 5 years prior, so his run felt like an unnecessary retread.

It didn't help that Santino's run stunk. He held the belt for five months and in that time he only defended it four times before finally dropping it to Cesaro on a pre-show.

Oct 16, 2017 12:29:12 GMT 🤯 said:

Oct 16, 2017 2:24:53 GMT Big Pete said:

I had never thought of this, but Ryder's biggest obstacle was Santino Marella.

Ryder appeared destined to win the belt back from Swagger, but then Santino got over at the 2012 Elimination Chamber and they made the switch. I groaned when I was reminded about that because I have no recollection of Santino's run. However, Santino was inexplicably over and I remember his face off against Bryan was the highlight of a fairly lackluster PPV.

Santino was definitely a better character and probably arguably worker than Zack, so no harm/foul/loss there.

That is debatable regarding Santino being a better performer than Ryder. I understand it is opinion based but Santino was a over pushed talent and didn't deserve what he achieved, 

No disrespect what so ever is meant by my post by the way.

I never got why the WWE had Ryder win the Intercontinental Championship at Wrestlemania when obviously they were going to have him drop it the day after to Miz. Why not just have Miz have the win there and then?

The zack ryder story is a great example of the WWE being so hypocritical in what they say, All the crap about 'grabbing the brass ring' and Zack did it and then gets shit on as a result! I would like to see him go to ROH or somewhere and see how he develops but it won't happen as no matter how much of a prick wwe portrays him as he is loyal to the bone.

Vince really likes swerving the audience at Wrestlemania, so Zack winning the belt was less about him and more about serving the show. It's the same reason why the League of Nations and Chris Jericho won the other openers because those matches didn't matter.

If Ryder went to ROH he would just continue to flounder.