WWE TLC 2011: It's Now or Never for Zack Ryder to Win the U.S. Title

For WWE fans, the year 2011 will go down as newsworthy for a few reasons. The Rock’s return to the promotion, for example. Or Edge announcing to shocked fans back in April that he was retiring from WWE due to severe neck problems.

However, one of the most memorable things about this year has undoubtedly been the emergence of Zack Ryder as one of wrestling’s most unlikely success stories.  

Raw jobber Ryder, faced with a career going nowhere, decided to start his own reality show on YouTube, recruiting his own family members and friends to star in it, as well as various WWE superstars, including Melina and John Morrison.

It was a last-ditch bid to revive his stagnant career and it worked better than even he could have hoped. With his funny, imaginative show, Ryder won himself thousands of fans, both on YouTube and the locker room (John Cena is one of his biggest fans on- and off-screen).  

They all admired his wit, his charisma and his hard work in attempting to get himself over with no help from the company or the booking team.

The whole became almost surreal at last month’s Survivor Series event from Madison Square Garden, when mega star The Rock cut an after-show promo and the fans started chanting loudly “We Want Ryder.” Yes, faced with one of the biggest wrestling stars of all time, and a Hollywood leading man to boot, the fans were more interested in seeing Ryder.

It is an amazing story, all things considered. And its culmination should be Ryder winning the U.S Title from foe Dolph Ziggler at the TLC pay-per-view, cementing his place in the Raw upper-card and rewarding the faith of all his fans in the arena and in the locker room.

For Ryder to come up short and lose to Ziggler would be absolute madness.  

Indeed, the need for Zack to win the title was reinforced in the manner the match was made on Monday’s Raw: Cena, in a totally selfless act, agreed to give up his WWE title shot at TLC so Ryder could get a qualifying match to become No.1 contender to the U.S championship.

Ryder later won the bout and earned a match at the PPV, defeating the fearsome Mark Henry, with more than a little help from his guardian angel Cena.

This storyline made it clear: Ryder has to win now, or Cena’s sacrifice was all for nothing.  If Dolph emerges triumphant from the pay-per-view, both Cena and Ryder would also look considerably worse in the eyes of fans: Ryder would look like a weakling who cannot seal the deal, and Cena will come off as an idiot for supporting him so strongly.

TLC is also the perfect time to award Ryder the belt—he is arguably at the peak of his popularity right now, and the booking team needs to strike while the iron is hot.

Notably, WWE waited ages to put the Divas Championship on Beth Phoenix, and her momentum stalled. She never got the buzz and excitement surrounding her back, and her title run has thus far been a flop. WWE should try to not repeat the same mistake with Ryder.     

It is also time for Ziggler to move on from the U.S Title. One of WWE’s most talented stars, in and out of the ring, he’s had a good, credible run, but has now outgrown the belt and needs to move up the card to work a main-event program, possibly with CM Punk.

Retaining the belt at TLC would do him no favours whatsoever.

Summarily, the booking team would be displaying stunning incompetency by not giving Ryder the belt at the pay-per-view. It would prove once and for all that they really have lost it and have no idea how to book wrestling anymore.

This may seem highly unlikely, but considering these are the same people who thought putting Kevin Nash in a ladder match with HHH would be a good idea, we can’t rule this out entirely.

But let’s hope common sense prevails.