6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Battleground 2016

4. Ryder Puts Up A Fight

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No one really gave Zack Ryder a chance in his United States Championship match against Rusev. Ryder hasn’t really been taken seriously by WWE brass (and even the fans) in years. But that didn’t mean that the crowd didn’t rally behind him Sunday.

Ryder made a good show of it, aggressively attacking the Bulgarian Brute and rocking him a couple times. Zack even nearly fought out of the Accolade before succumbing to it. It’s a lot more than Ryder would have gotten in a match a year ago… if he even got a televised bout, much less a PPV match.

Rusev winning was obviously the right call, as he continues to look dominant once again and is becoming a believable threat. And with Mojo Rawley saving Ryder, it stands to reason that the two will re-form their Hype Bros tag team on SmackDown, although Zack was just starting to look credible against opponents in singles bouts.

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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.