10 Wrestlers WWE Should Have Pushed More

Picture this: You hit the weights, you bust your hump at wrestling school, you’re bruised from the bumps and running the ropes, you work and travel and hone your craft, you hit the big leagues but that mythical brass ring doesn’t quite find you.

For every mega star the WWE has produced, the next 50 or so fall under the above. Near every wrestler has been dead set on grabbing a World title and a main event push at some point in their career. While many are ill-fitting for such responsibilities, others are frustratingly perfect for a mountaintop they never get to climb.

A litany of fan favourites, workhorses and prodigious talents have failed to completely ascend the sports entertainment mountain over the years. The reasons have ranged from the petty and the political to just plain bad luck. In more recent times, many would argue WWE's inexplicable need to meddle with winning formulas is a key cause.

Like, say, changing a beloved indie king and all round ring general's name to that of either the coffee guy from Friends or a Nazi, depending on who one asks...

Zack Ryder was a pioneer of self-promotion and using social media to get oneself over during the late noughties to early 2010s period. His YouTube channel turned him, a mere jobber on the barely watched WWE reboot of ECW, into a beloved fan favourite.

As 2011 rolled in, it was clear fans wanted to see 'The Long Island Iced-Z' enjoy a well-deserved bump up the card. Initially, it appeared WWE had taken the 'We Want Ryder' chants seriously. They gradually repackaged him as a fiery underdog and did away with the ludicrous one-leg-in-tights-one-leg-bare attire.

His US title win over Dolph Ziggler at TLC 2011 seemingly solidified Ryder as a star with a high ceiling. Many were asking if Ryder could one day become a true superstar in the promotion.

Nope.

Ryder became a hapless pawn in John Cena's career-worst feud against Kane in early 2012. Ryder lost his US belt and watched on as his "girlfriend" Eve Torres made out with (the then-married) Cena.

The former Edgehead then went from low to low, including a chumpifying low blow from Torres at WrestleMania XXVIII. Bar a miraculous Intercontinental Title win at WrestleMania XXXII (which ended the next night), Ryder was buried into oblivion for the rest of his WWE run.

His rebirth as the obsequious "ex-WWE star" Matt Cardona in GCW and IMPACT has proven how entertaining he can be. Given his charisma, phenomenal conditioning and zero issues doing business, the mind boggles at to why WWE threw him under a bus.