Zack Ryder Reportedly Demoted Due To Low Rating

[Dale]

Dave Meltzer stated on the Dec. 27 edition of Wrestling Observer Radio (available here) that Zack Ryder being placed in a romance storyline with Eve Torres and away from the main event scene stems from the staggeringly low quarter hour rating for last week's Raw SuperShow main event, which saw Long Island Iced-Z, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan stand tall against The Miz, Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler.

The main event garnered a 2.67 cable rating (2.55 for the first half of the bout), which was the lowest-rated main event on Raw in 2011 and possibly the lowest since Dec. 8, 1997 for a non-holiday show in its regular time slot. The overrun gained 59,000 viewers, which is considered terrible.

The Ryder/Torres storyline is slated to continue for at least a few weeks.

I'm fine with this move in the essence that I thought he was being overexposured in the main event scene

 

[SAL]

Goddamn that's stupid if true. The one guy who's going to get the brunt of the blame is the guy who's the least established of the six? I'm gonna rant, and I'm gonna rant at WWE like it's a person who can hear and understand me, okay? Okay.

WWE, you need to make a fucking decision. You really do. You can't keep teasing a youth movement and then scrambling back to the few established people on your roster when the rating goes down for a week. This isn't going to happen overnight. There are no more established stars. There's no WCW/ECW to get guys from. You have to build ALL of your future superstars yourself. A ratings drop for a little while? Deal with it. PPV buyrates go down 10%? Deal with it. Nobody buys any shirts other than Cena/Punk? FUCKING DEAL WITH IT. Austin didn't come from the ether. Rock didn't always have the crowds in the palm of his hand. HHH used to be a kinda-British sissy. Kane used to be a fucking dentist. Take some time, take the talented guys on your roster, and get them up to the main event now. It'll feel weird now for the fans, but that will go away quickly. The ratings will go down in the short term because the guys who need to be pushed up don't matter to casual fans right now. You have to MAKE THEM MATTER. Otherwise you're going to throw out HHH/Kane/Taker as the main event of Wrestlemania 50 and I'll have killed myself 15 years before that happens. THANK YOU, GOOD NIGHT.

 

[John McHenry]

Don't believe it Metzler has about as much credibility as a security guard in the arena.

 

[SAL]

Yeah, but I ranted about it, so...it's gotta be true.

 

[PHX]

Goddamn that's stupid if true. The one guy who's going to get the brunt of the blame is the guy who's the least established of the six? I'm gonna rant, and I'm gonna rant at WWE like it's a person who can hear and understand me, okay? Okay.

WWE, you need to make a fucking decision. You really do. You can't keep teasing a youth movement and then scrambling back to the few established people on your roster when the rating goes down for a week. This isn't going to happen overnight. There are no more established stars. There's no WCW/ECW to get guys from. You have to build ALL of your future superstars yourself. A ratings drop for a little while? Deal with it. PPV buyrates go down 10%? Deal with it. Nobody buys any shirts other than Cena/Punk? FUCKING DEAL WITH IT. Austin didn't come from the ether. Rock didn't always have the crowds in the palm of his hand. HHH used to be a kinda-British sissy. Kane used to be a fucking dentist. Take some time, take the talented guys on your roster, and get them up to the main event now. It'll feel weird now for the fans, but that will go away quickly. The ratings will go down in the short term because the guys who need to be pushed up don't matter to casual fans right now. You have to MAKE THEM MATTER. Otherwise you're going to throw out HHH/Kane/Taker as the main event of Wrestlemania 50 and I'll have killed myself 15 years before that happens. THANK YOU, GOOD NIGHT.

this right here.

This isn't 1998 so I don't get the whole omg ratings are dropping so we better revert back to some guys attitude. If they don't have any patience they'll be fucked after all the guys they try to revert back to for the most part are retired. Ryder is a guy who went from on the chopping block to drawing attention to himself from a youtube video series and now you hear about how his shirts are selling out and has gotten over. I think he's worked his ass off enough to be allowed some patience. Hard for anybody to get behind anything if they know they have such a short leash because of stupid rating.

I would understand this more if they were currently in a boom period but they're not and won't be if they keep not taking any chances. WWE went through years of a down period in danger of being put of business and now when they have no danger of being overthrown they panic after a week? I really hope it doesn't take something happening to Cena to be the equivalent of when Hogan left WWE to force them to have patience.

 

[SAL]

To give the WWE the benefit of the doubt, I imagine the more likely reason for this "de-push" that really isn't one (he's still winning!) is that bullshit thing they do where a guy who rises up quickly languishes in the midcard to make sure he doesn't Lesnar himself out of there.

 

[PHX]

I would get that more if they did something like have Ryder go over top names win the world title, etc but he hasn't done that and didn't even seem like they were gonna push him in that manor anyways. They've handled him really until maybe up to this point if they don't allow his momentum to keep going which WWE seems to always have a hard time of doing nowadays.

 

[Troy]

I don't believe this story at all. Ryder is still the US champion, he had a match on RAW which he won, he had a backstage segment with John Cena. How is that a demotion? Most guys on the roster would kill for that much exposure every week.

 

[John McHenry]

If anything its a promotion for the divas division they're doing something other than a two minute match.

 

[Dale]

To give the WWE the benefit of the doubt, I imagine the more likely reason for this "de-push" that really isn't one (he's still winning!) is that bullshit thing they do where a guy who rises up quickly languishes in the midcard to make sure he doesn't Lesnar himself out of there.

Seems plausible. They seem to love pulling the rug out from underneath guys as they start to build momentum and get hot. Seems like a way of humbling them and letting them know who's the bosses still without flat out burying them.

 

[The Cork]

Well thats what you get when you overpush bland jobbers.

Appealing to smarks = no ratings.

 

[InYourFace]

Im so hyped up for all the exposure the 3 of them were getting as champions, but there they go all hung up again on ratings, i know TNA is nowhere close to even the lowest WWE ratings, so whats the fucking problem!?

 

[Kiffy Lube]

It says that he got put in another storyline and keeping him away from the main event which is a good idea for now. He'll still be on TV every week, right? That is the whole idea of his character right now, to be on RAW. This won't hurt Ryder if he is destined to be a star.

 

[InYourFace]

That part doesnt bug me, its just when this ratings shit comes up it annoys the fuck out of me cause ratings are pointless right with TNA as your competition, but your right as long as Ryder is on RAW every week im a happy broski.

 

[Heisenberg]

WWE Officials Discuss Michael Cole's Commentary
WWE officials held a meeting last week after the RAW ratings came in, during which Michael Cole's commentary was discussed according to F4Wonline.com.
TV rating's patterns show fans have little interest in seeing anyone on TV besides the top Superstars. It was considered that a reason why might be Cole's continual burial of talent on Raw and Smackdown for the past year or so.

As noted earlier, there has been internal discussion about how Michael Cole has buried talents over the past year and how that burying hasn't helped them any. Zack Ryder and Daniel Bryan were specifically brought up as far as Cole burying them goes. It was pointed out that Cole has put them down in commentary forever and both haven't been booked as main event talents up until recently and it showed when they had to rely on Bryan, Ryder and CM Punk to carry the RAW main event, which flopped, a few weeks back.

Interesting.