Zack Ryder on Having His Own Podcast Independent of WWE

– Fightful recently spoke to WWE Superstar Zack Ryder, who discussed starting his Major Wrestling Figure Podcast and YouTube channel with Curt Hawkins. Below are some highlights.

Ryder on starting a podcast about wrestling action figures: “Almost a year ago exactly, Hawkins and I started the Major Wrestling Figure podcast. It’s a podcast about, you guessed it, wrestling figures! And wrestling collectibles and stuff like that. And we didn’t really expect for it to grow as fast as it did. So pretty soon our fans were demanding merchandise and shirts, and then we started doing live shows. Then we’re like, well, we need some Youtube content because the Figure It Out show we do with WWE it was coming out like once a month, if that. We need some regularly scheduled stuff. So we just decided, ‘Let’s go film these vlogs of us hunting for toys. If we’re on the road and there’s a cool store, let’s film it selfie style and just see what happens.’ And the fans love it, you said you liked it. So, thanks. We’ll find these vintage stores. If it’s cool enough to film something, we’ll do it. We’ll put it out there and hopefully bring some traffic to their stores.”

Ryder on how it’s Zack and Brian for the podcast, not Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins: “The podcast is as Zack and Brian, not Zack and Curt, but yeah. WWE knows about it, we’re not hiding it. I promote it all the time. We’re talking about it right now. So it’s very cool to have this, it’s still wrestling related, but it’s something we do on our own. Let’s say we want to make a backscratcher. We don’t have to ask somebody to do it. We’ll just make some stupid item and sell it. It’s cool to have that kind of creative freedom.”

Where you can find the podcast: “It’s called the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast, wherever you download your podcasts. We’re on Youtube, youtube.com/majorwwfpod. Check it out, if you had figures you’ll enjoy it. If you like figures now you’ll love it. But, what I like is a lot of people who listen to it just because they’re Zack Ryder fans, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I had these figures as a kid, now you have me going on eBay buying my old stuff.’ Or ‘I’m at Target or Walmart and I’m finding the new Mattel stuff.’ Or ‘I never bought a figure in my life, and now I’m buying them.’ So it’s cool to be building this little figure community of adult men and women who are playing with toys. I love it.”