I was sitting down at my computer and watching another episode of Zach Ryder’s Youtube show The Major Wrestling Figure podcast and it got me thinking of why the WWE can’t do something more like this instead of portraying him as the same loser we see on TV every week?
Now I get it, being into action figures and collecting them is not exactly a popular thing. It is geeky as hell. I know as I am a collector of the old GI Joe Real American Hero figures myself. I don’t get into the Mint on Card stuff like Zach Ryder does with the WWF figured, but I also know it is a geeky thing to get into. I also don’t care what anyone else thinks.
And maybe that is what Ryder needs. A character that gets into the geeky and the weird type of things and when someone tries to rag on him about it backstage, he just tells the guy off and states that he is more than happy that way and that he isn’t going to change for someone else. Give the kids who are actually watching a real message of being happy about who you are instead of trying to be popular by being something your not. It’s not a complex message to show people. You just need to find a way to do it, and maybe Zach Ryder is just that way.
Of course, an action figure collecting geek character probably won’t get over that much with the crowd either. But one way to counter that is making him a sympathetic face against a big bully. You don’t need to make Zach a cartoon character and have him do things like act like he’s never seen a woman before (his web show shows that he is fine in that regard) or dress like Urkel and get some guys giving him wedgies or something. You could just have Ryder be how he usually is but bring in more of his geeky side on-screen. Have him sitting in a locker room and excitedly tell Curt Hawkins he just lined up a deal to score a big haul of figures or something from wherever they are. Add to that a look from Hawkins that he can’t believe it but he is going along with what Ryder is doing and you would probably have something to actually work with.
You could really take it to the next level and have Ryder take a figure or whatever that he “just scored” in finding in whatever town they are in and have to conk some guy out with it during a match and score a win. Not so much in a cheating way but a sudden thing he did as the idea crossed his mind.
There are al kinds of things the WWE could do with a storyline like that. There would be a lot of losing to build up Ryder. A geeky character like that shouldn’t win all their matches (unless you really want to get weird) and somehow scored a title win of some sort (Not the WWE title but the Intercontinental or the U.S. Title) and give it a positive climax to the whole story. Take the geek character and take him to the highest of highs.
But that is probably wishing way too much from the WWE Writers. They won’t do anything like that. If anything, they would probably do exactly what I said not to. They would dress him up like a geek from TV and give him a stutter and just have him lose to Randy Orton or something before Roman Reigns comes in to take over the feud and save the day. In other words, they would completely miss the point. It’s not like that hasn’t happened with Ryder already.
The WWE writers aren’t known to take a good idea and run with it.
