10 WWE Releases AEW Needs To Sign

4. Zack Ryder

Zack Ryder
WWE.com

Zack Ryder may be a joke to many, but those idiots are choosing to ignore one of pro wrestling’s most frustrating stories. Almost completely ignored by the creative team, Zack Ryder had the temerity to go away and get himself over, revolutionising the way wrestlers self-promoted in the process. WWE was forced to bring him back, only to give him a half-baked push that ultimately buried him deeper than before his internet-fuelled popularity began.

Through it all, Ryder never wavered from the company line, refusing to speak ill of WWE despite the creative team’s treatment of him. That tells you a lot about the love that Zack Ryder has for professional wrestling. The least he deserves is some tender loving care, in the form of less offensive booking.

Ryder’s influence on the modern pro wrestling landscape cannot be overstated. Nobody utilized social media to get over better than Long Island Iced Z, and his YouTube show was the prototype for countless ones that followed. You could go as far as stating that Zack Ryder was one of the most important wrestlers of the last decade. He deserves more respect, and AEW should be there to give it to him.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.