Dear WWE Universe - stop liking Zach Ryder

Dear IWC,

I am a representative of WWE, and I have been asked to speak to you today about recent happenings concerning 'wrestling' *spit* fans and their wacky notion of “free speech”.

Word has gotten around about a series of incidents at the Monday Night Raw tapings in London, England this week. Apparently, a few fans brought signs to the O2 Arena in praise of an established midcarder, one Zack Ryder. These signs were brought in praise of Ryder, with the most quoted example being “RYDER = RATINGS”.

First off, Zack Ryder is NOTHING. Zack Ryder is nothing because WE say he’s nothing, got that? Despite your belief that he’s a charismatic presence with a unique persona, sense of genuine enthusiasm, and spirited ring presence, we believe he’s nothing. The truth is that Zack Ryder is a skinny kid from New York that we never intended to make into a star.

In 2009, Ryder was saddled with his latent Guido-esque gimmick just to give him something to do, and nothing more. But then, slowly, quite a few fans got behind him, even though he plays a villain.

Quite sidebar: what is it with you people and liking bad guys? Last time I checked, a “bad guy” was supposed to be booed, whereas a “good guy” is supposed to be cheered.

On top of that, a bad guy like Ryder, who we allot zero momentum to, isn’t supposed to get any reaction at all. We even gave him an intentionally cheesy song to try and kill any traction he may somehow acquire, and yet a lot of Ryder’s fans LIKE the song! I don’t get it. You’ll boo the opening strains of John Cena’s “Time is Now”, but you’ll flood your godawful groups on networking sites with “WOO WOO WOO, YOU KNOW IT” and “OHHHHHH RADIO”?

I sincerely hate you people.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate you all the time. I love it when you folks spend your money on our product, because that sustains us like green-tinted oxygen. But you’re going to learn pretty damn quick that just because you pays your money, it doesn’t mean you takes your choice, to use an old saying.

So some “wrestling” *spit* fans thought they could just waltz into the O2 Arena with homemade Zack Ryder signs and get away with it? If we wanted you to bring Zack Ryder signs, we’d push Zack Ryder. However, Mr. Ryder isn’t high enough in the pecking order to have your undying love and admiration.

The pecking order on Raw clearly goes: John Cena, Randy Orton, The Miz, Michael Cole, Guest Hosts, CM Punk, The Smart, Sexy, & Powerful Divas, Anyone Over 270 Pounds That’s in Shape, Any Second Generation Superstar, Jim Ross, and then, maybe, Zack Ryder. We’ve been perpetuating this formula pretty much ever since Cena came over to Raw in the 2005 draft, and, despite your angry tears, we’ve felt no inclination to change our strategy.

For those of you who claim that WWE should listen to its fans and push who you want accordingly, let me give you a reality check that you’re not going to like.
WWE isn’t wrestling any more. WWE is now a production company that is 100% plastic from head to toe. WWE makes movies, sells record albums, promotes reality shows, and sells more merchandise than you people could ever hope to singularly afford. We’re no longer a “rasslin’ company” that likes having a bunch of hillbillies and geeks in the crowd, chanting and cheering.

While WWE doesn’t like to take its cue from other wrestling companies, the short lived Wrestling Society X that was on MTV in 2007 gave us a GENIUS idea.

See, instead of letting fans simply buy tickets to attend their events, they would screen people who wanted to attend. They would only let in fans that MTV felt “looked good on camera”, because MTV, long before any other network, knows what “shallow” is.

If not for the fact that you morons still buy tickets to get into our events, we’d just as soon replace you all with pretty women, hunky men, and generally pleasant-looking folks, as opposed to letting the same black t-shirt wearing ICP kids and overweight Jeff Hardy squealers in all the time.

But don’t worry; we’re working on a way to make our dream of having a pristine audience a reality. Just give us time; we can break you.

I’m sure you’re sitting there saying “You can’t do that! We’ll just stop watching!’ and I say to that, good luck! All we have to do is promise you something minor and you’ll come crawling back.

Don’t believe me? What if I said we were re-releasing Edge’s DVD, complete with a fourth disc of bonus matches?

Thank you for your $24.99 in advance!

For all of the times you geeks have sworn off WWE “forever”, we’ve pumped out DVDs for Chris Jericho, Mick Foley, classic ECW matches, and other areas of your interest, just to make you keep funneling your money into our corporate machine.

Those pay per views you buy to see CM Punk and Christian, those video games you buy every year, all of the products we put out just to rip into your wallet, it’s helping finance the changes we’re making to WWE so that we can eliminate ‘wrestling’ once and for all.

Hey, this is what you wanted. You hate TNA, which offers that stupid “wrestling”, so you turn to us. And because you refuse to seek alternatives, instead blowing your paychecks on WWE, you’re just as responsible for killing “wrestling” as we are.

So the next time you want to get snippy about us eliminating Zack Ryder signs from our television programs, remember: we make the rules, because you allow us to. And if we cared about what you thought, we’d have allowed comments on the WWE Universe page to be posted without screening.

But we don’t care. :-D

Sincerely,
Your Corporate Overlord

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Very interesting read!

What's the context around this story, I mean where was it published? Is it actually from a WWE insider? Doesn't sound like it. Can't believe they'd treat the fans like that.

Really makes me wanna get behind Ryder now....

It could also be a stunt between WWE and Ryder - they know he has an emerging fanbase but to really exploit it it has to remain underground for now... There isn't enough of a groundswell behind it for it to break out yet so by oppressing it, more fans will get behind the Ryder movement.

In fact, the whole Youtube campaign could have been the creation of the WWE - or an I being a bit cynical??