Over the Limit. He won the 20-man battle royal on the special "Great American Bash" July 3 episode of SmackDown to become the acting SmackDown (or "ZackDown", as he called it) GM the next week. At the Night of Champions pre-show on September 16, Ryder won a 16-man battle royal to become number one contender for the United States Championship. However, later on in the pay-per-view, he failed to capture the title from defending champion Antonio Cesaro. During the debut episode of Main Event on October 3, Ryder and Santino Marella were entered into a tournament to decide the number one contender to the tag team titles, where they defeated Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd to advance to the semi-finals. The following week on Raw, the duo (eventually known as Team Co-Bro) was eliminated from the tournament after losing to Team Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow). As 2012 drew to a close, Ryder commented that the year had "sucked". In 2013, Ryder most commonly appeared on Superstars and lost all his singles matches on Raw and SmackDown. Ryder entered the 2013 Royal Rumble match (his only PPV match for the year) and was eliminated with no eliminations after two minutes. After weeks of the roster's emasculation at the hands of authority figure Triple H, Ryder and several other babyfaces finally saved Daniel Bryan from a beat-down by The Shield and Randy Orton on the September 16 Raw. In response, Triple H arranged for Ryder and Justin Gabriel to face Luke Harper and Erick Rowan of the Wyatt Family on the next SmackDown, where Ryder's team lost. On the next Raw, Bryan, Ryder and the other babyfaces faced the Shield in an 11-on-3 handicap elimination match; Ryder was eliminated by Roman Reigns, but his team eventually won the match. In January 2014, the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter released a ranking of WWE's roster; Ryder was ranked as a lower-tier babyface and the third lowest babyface on the roster. Ryder was also unsuccessful in winning three battle royals: the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania XXX, a battle royal for the United States Championship in May and a battle royal for the Intercontinental Championship at Battleground. On the July 21 episode of Raw, Ryder picked up his first singles victory on Raw since December 2012, but it was only after Layla interfered against Ryder's opponent, Fandango. In November