10 Burning Questions For WWE Raw (July 11th)

7. Is Ryder Little More Than Cannon Fodder?

brock lesnar paul heyman
WWE.com

What a week for Zack Ryder.

Despite last week’s Raw having a nonsensical, dismal main event, it’s still worth noting that Ryder was one of the two survivors of the 16-man elimination tag match (along with Big Show), scoring the deciding pinfall over Sheamus. Then on SmackDown, Long Island Iced Z defeated the Celtic Warrior in quick fashion.

Ryder then declared his intention to challenge Rusev for the United States Championship (which is odd considering that Miz beat Zack for the IC title the night after WrestleMania). The Bulgarian Brute has required that Ryder challenge him to his face on Raw, so it will be interesting to see how things go for Zack on Monday.

Is Ryder just going to get bowled over and sacrificed to Rusev as part of the Super Athlete’s ongoing makeover as a dominant heel, or could Zack actually be on the rise and get a legit, competitive shot at the title?

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.