ZACK RYDER: THE TRUE INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF 2011

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Published on Thursday, 22 December 2011 20:41

Written by Justin Henry

ZACK RYDER: THE TRUE INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF 2011

By Justin Henry

 

(All feedback for this article can be sent to its author, either on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/notoriousjrh) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/cynicjrh)

 

(CHEAP PLUG: Check out this week’s edition of Justin’s Monday Night Raw recap, written in real time! http://camelclutchblog.com/wwe-raw-supershow-december-19-results/)

 

For Boston Red Sox fans, the 2004 World Series was a special occasion. Obviously, they won baseball’s World Championship, having swept out the St. Louis Cardinals, but it meant a little more than just that. Those who know their baseball history know quite well that the Red Sox were a jinxed franchise, a doomed ship treading over murky waters.

 

Before 2004, Boston had not claimed a world title since 1918. In the interim time between, the “Sawx” had fallen short many a time, occasionally in gut-wrenching fashion. They called it “The Curse of the Bambino”, because the Sox had the nerve to trade away Babe Ruth to the Yankees, with many believing the 86-year curse was precipitated by the trade. It was a metaphorical broken mirror, because bad luck, as Johnny Cash would say, was now blowing on Boston’s back.

 

Bucky Dent’s 1978 home run in the one game playoff comes to mind, as does Bill Buckner’s “between-the-legs roller” in 1986. In 2003, a year before paradise-found, Boston had a chance to knock the New York Yankees out in the ALCS, only to completely blow the deciding game when manager Grady Little left pitcher Pedro Martinez in just a bit too long, allowing New York to mount the comeback.

 

Sit a grizzled, old-timey Red Sox fan down one day, and he can most assuredly add to this list of Sox Nation tragedies.

 

But in 2004, fortunes changed. Boston got their rematch in the ALCS with the hated Yankees. In a seven game series, Boston found themselves down three games to nothing. And then, through miracles unexplainable by any four-eyed, bearded professor, Boston staged furious comebacks in games four and five to make the series a manageable 3-2. A late stonewalling in game six (aided by Alex Rodriguez’s infamous attempt at cheating for the Yankees, and subsequently getting caught by the umpires) astonished the world, because nobody had EVER come back from being down 3-0 to win a series.

 

And then, it happened.

 

In game seven, live from Yankees Stadium, Boston didn’t just win the clincher, but they annihilated New York in slaughterhouse fashion. 10-3 was the final, and Boston had put up eight of those runs in the first few innings. “The Idiots”, as the Boston players referred to their selves, had commandeered the series like bloodthirsty pirates, and were now on their way to the World Series.

 

And, as was aforementioned, Boston took that series from the Cardinals. The curse was dead, and nobody could laugh at the Red Sox.. In one moment, every mishap, every shortcoming, every failure was erased, because their World Series trophy and rings had a fresher shine than every other trophy and ring that had been earned.

 

Looking back to that night, I can remember cheering for Boston and being so happy for them. My brother did the same, and we proudly taped the moment (remember VHS?) to have for posterity.

 

Did I mention that my brother and I are Phillies fans?

 

In fact, unless you’re a Yankees fan, Cardinals fan, or the cheerer of another Sox rival, chances are you at least felt happy for Boston on that night. There’s something special about seeing the underdog, the long shot, the laughingstock, defy the odds and naysayers and stand tall. Especially when there were many that had written a team like Boston off as a “never-will-be”, a permanent failure, and forever a bridesmaid, never the bride.

 

When it comes to World Wrestling Entertainment, it’s easy to overlook their midcard sometimes, much like the Red Sox. Moreso than ever, WWE has developed a caste system for its talent. Talents like Tyler Reks, Curt Hawkins, Johnny Curtis, The Usos, Trent Baretta, Tyson Kidd, Yoshi Tatsu, and others are trapped on Superstars Island, or used in supplement roles on Smackdown without getting a real chance to grow. With the exception of the December 19 Raw, Monday nights are a haven for the top 12 or 14 talents dominate the airwaves, leaving little room for someone to wiggle through and make a splash.

 

Such has been evident in 2011, as the likes of Chris Masters and David Hart Smith, were dumped, despite the fact that both men are skilled wrestlers (Masters improved immensely in the past year). It’s frustrating, because the indication is that McMahon no longer values hard work and self-improvement. Instead, he seems to be blinded by the notion that loading up his main shows with frequent title changes, watered-down talking points with the bigger merchandise sellers, and the dangerous practice of over saturating the free TV shows with possible PPV matchups, will turn the business around.

 

In other words, it’s become just that much harder for someone to shed a midcard label and run with the ball.

 

Fans are pretty stubborn, however. Not always willing to accept John Cena, Randy Orton, Triple H, Rey Mysterio, and other main event fixtures, it’s become a cool and rebellious thing to do to get behind somebody that WWE and Vince may not have solidified faith in.

 

When CM Punk delivered his pipe-bomb speech in June, Vince had zero choice but to push him. The buzz created by his bold, unapologetic words shattered WWE’s draconian-script system, and people noticed. Punk was already a borderline main-eventer as it was, but that bleeding-gut approach he brought to his ‘I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore’ turn put Punk over the top.

 

McMahon, knowing that Punk was already on the cusp of being an everyday headliner anyway, likely had no qualms about championing him among the top tier in his penthouse suite-o-booking.

 

It may have been a bit easier for Punk, who the fans, five years running, refused to let fall by backing him no matter what, but what if the fans at large got behind somebody who seemed to have no upward mobility whatsoever, and zero interest from McMahon in getting behind as a legitimate star?

 

In 2011, we saw just such a social experiment in Zack Ryder.

 

 Ah yes, Long Island Iced Z. The Long Island Loudmouth. Woo woo woo, you know it. What would Monday Night Raw be these days without the presence of Zack Ryder? He’s as much part of the show these days as anyone.

 

The difference between Ryder and, say, CM Punk, is usage. Ryder was once meandering around WWE Superstars, macking it to Rosa Mendes, and forming a long-since-forgotten tag team with the aimless Primo. Together, the duo squared off with such “illustrious” tandems like Goldust and Yoshi Tatsu and…..well that was pretty much the length of that list.

 

It’s quite obvious that, to have faith in Ryder as a future star, you were going to have to suspend consensus logic. A quick look at some results for WWE Superstars in the summer and fall of 2010 yields the following names: Goldust, William Regal, Yoshi Tatsu, Primo, The Usos, Chris Masters, Caylen Croft, Trent Baretta, Chavo Guerrero, JTG, Luke Gallows, Curt Hawkins, Vance Archer, and a bunch of other talents that are seemingly prohibited from getting meaningful airtime on Raw and PPVs.

 

In other words, other than a major star like Chris Jericho appearing on the “C” show to get a decisive win, WWE Superstars is a place where hope for a lofty future goes to die.

 

I mean, just look at that list. None of those listed have done anything noteworthy in WWE in the past eighteen months. Fans have accepted WWE Superstars as a free-range walking field for the misfit toys to wander around until the day Johnny Ace takes them out back and blows their brains out with the Future Endeavors twelve-gauge. Masters, Croft, Chavo, Gallows, and Archer are all long since gone, while the others, save for the occasional Smackdown showcase, are hardly on McMahon’s radar.

 

Zack Ryder understood this. At twenty-five years of age, all he’d done in the previous two years was have a forgotten Tag Team title reign with Hawkins, and change his look from Edge-clone to Jersey Shore reject. With that kind of bare-bones resume, there wasn’t a whole lot stopping WWE from casting him off, so that he could perhaps be claimed by TNA and buried among the X Division shuffle, or go back to square one on the indie circuit and redefine himself.

 

But on February 17, 2011, Ryder did something out of sheer boredom and frustration that would have a far-reaching effect on himself, WWE, and, perhaps, the way wrestlers of today and tomorrow present themselves in order to enhance their own value and to include the fans in this increasingly-interactive world we live in.

 

On the day that a WWE Superstars match aired in which he and Primo lost a non title match to Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov, Ryder uploaded a video to YouTube. At three minutes and thirty-eight seconds in length, it was the debut edition if Z! True Long Island Story. Although the video wasn’t much more than cheap hocking of his new t-shirt and action figure (featuring a “match” where Ryder’s figure defeated The Rock’s own Mattel toy), it was still an attempt to get noticed.

 

And noticed, he would get. Ten months after the upload, the first episode of ‘Z!’ now clocks in at over 580,000 views. The cheaply-filmed, oft-absurd adventures of Zack Ryder routinely break the six figures in views in no time. Notices of his latest episodes are posting among the headlines on wrestling news sites, and his rising fanbase eats up the comedy, whether he’s winning an imaginary tournament to become “Internet Champion”, or spastically freaking out over a random John Cena cameo.

 

But why? Why do we like Zack Ryder so much? After all, he’s just a former midcarder with a facetiously over-the-top persona that’s lost more matches in a year than he’s won in three. Add to that the fact that he makes home videos of himself behaving like an overgrown child in dude-tacular sunglasses, and isn’t he just destined to be a flash in the pan?

 

I think not. What ‘Z!’ affords the fans is a look at Zack Ryder, as drawn, written, and acted out by Matthew Cardona. The more sterile, stilted, and scripted WWE has become in recent years, the more a man like Ryder, in all of his farcical glory, is welcome. Matthew Cardona is a fan, like you and me. He’s the guy you have over the house on PPV night to chip in, bring some brews, and debate pointless wrestling topics during restholds (“You’re wrong! Demolition was better than LOD! Don’t make me throw this half-empty can at you!”). We believe Zack because Zack believes Zack.

 

And we want to believe Zack because we want to believe in ourselves. When Zack pumps his fist before delivering the Broski Boot, we pump with him because Zack is us. When he throws up the ‘L.I.’ hand gesture, we don’t have to be from Merrick, NY like Zack to rally behind him. And when he ended months of chasing Dolph Ziggler by flipping him inside out with the Rough Ryder on December 18 at TLC, the roof nearly blew off the 1^st Mariner Arena in Baltimore to become United States Champion, we couldn’t help but be proud of the kid who pushed and pushed until his dream finally came true.

 

We don’t do that for Mason Ryan or Ezekiel Jackson, two musclebound gym rats with no connection to the common man. We don’t do that for Drew McIntyre and Alberto Del Rio, two talented individuals who got their pushes before their debuts, simply because Vince McMahon developed a ‘crush’ on them and screamed “PUSH EM TO THE MOON!” We don’t do that for John Cena or Randy Orton, two guys who have won so many times that it’s lost all meaning.

 

But for someone like Zack, once buried on the WWE depth chart, who connected with the viewer on a level that was genuine and fun, who wouldn’t give up until WWE management finally noticed his grassroots campaign, we do care.

 

When Ryder and the other titleholders in WWE posed for that “new generation of champions” picture earlier this week, it was Zack who had the biggest smile on his face. Here he is, a fan who works for the company of his dreams, immortalized with gold over his shoulder, standing with the rest of his golden contemporaries, unable to wipe the toothy grin off of his face.

 

And Zack Ryder should never stop smiling. In Boston in 2004, Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez and the rest of the Red Sox partied into the night not just because they won, but because they, in the face of long odds and cruel history, didn’t stop fighting until they finally made it to the top.

 

In 2011, CM Punk may have “pipe bombed” his way to changing the face of WWE, but we all knew that Phil Brooks had that in him. It was Zack Ryder, nay, it was Matthew Cardona who stunned the world and changed wrestling as we know it. Zack Ryder went from zero to hero, from directionless afterthought to people’s champion, and from never-will-be to there-he-is. He did it because he didn’t give up, and because he wouldn’t accept anything less than success.

 

But most importantly, Ryder showed every fan out there that, if you just put your mind to it, and if you never give up when things are darkest, you can climb your way to the top, and you’ll find millions of people who will admire your breakthrough.

 

How ironic: Zack Ryder was inspired by wrestling, wrestlers, and the business so much that he wouldn’t quit on his dream, so he took to unconventional tactics to carve his niche. And now that he has carved out his place in WWE, he’s inspired so many out there to want to do the same.

 

Woo woo woo. We know it.

 

(Justin Henry is a freelance writer whose interests are rooted in NFL, MLB, NBA, wrestling, MMA, and entertainment. He can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cynicjrh and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/notoriousjrh so check him out) 

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