Once upon a time, Zack Ryder, a relative nobody left floundering by the transformation of WWECW into NXT, decided he was going to self-produce a YouTube show. Z! True Long Island Stories took off like a bat out of hell, gained him a groundswell of fan support, and made WWE notice him to the point where he got a run with the United States Championship at the tail end of 2011. He became entangled in a story with John Cena, Eve Torres, and Kane, one that lost him a lot of goodwill with both the office and with fans of his who were turned off by latching on to the misogynist tones the angle took with Torres and recording a song called "Hoeski."
Not content to let his career with WWE die, Ryder is going to the well once more with his Last ReZort web series. The first episode dropped yesterday, and basically, the video saw Ryder recapping his WWE career with fire and clarity. One promo may not be enough to sell me completely that he can remake his image and catch a second bolt of lightning, but his spiel certainly is not without its promise. Ryder took the Long Island Iced Z character as far as it could go without evolution. He needed a change, and I'm glad he realized it.
"Hoeski" aside (and really, whether he was inspired by bad writing or ad libbed his attitude towards Torres, that whole thing was still an awful, awful look), Ryder has been a solid performer whenever he's gotten studio space to explore, both inside and out of the ring. I hope this new venture works for him.
Not content to let his career with WWE die, Ryder is going to the well once more with his Last ReZort web series. The first episode dropped yesterday, and basically, the video saw Ryder recapping his WWE career with fire and clarity. One promo may not be enough to sell me completely that he can remake his image and catch a second bolt of lightning, but his spiel certainly is not without its promise. Ryder took the Long Island Iced Z character as far as it could go without evolution. He needed a change, and I'm glad he realized it.
"Hoeski" aside (and really, whether he was inspired by bad writing or ad libbed his attitude towards Torres, that whole thing was still an awful, awful look), Ryder has been a solid performer whenever he's gotten studio space to explore, both inside and out of the ring. I hope this new venture works for him.