10 WWE Sidekicks Who Were A Total Liability
5. Zack Ryder
In 2011, Matthew Zack Ryder Cardona, frustrated at the lack of faith in his ability being displayed by management, decided to take them up on their long-running challenge to talent to step up and grab the brass ring: he put together a charmingly amateurish weekly Youtube show with a few friends, booked himself as the host and star (and, eventually, Internet Champion) and slowly, gradually, actually got himself over with the WWE fanbase.
It's been five years now since WWE patted the soil flat upon Zack Ryder's grave, so people tend to forget how brutal his burial actually was. His merchandise began to sell, and then to sell out. Finally, he achieved a life goal and was booked (with almost heelish levels of interference and assistance from his storyline best friend John Cena) to win the United States championship on pay-per-view: the biggest night of his career. And then WWE booked him to be the junior partner in the notorious Eve-Cena-Kane-Ryder angle of early 2012.
Between January and March, Ryder would be pulverised almost every single week on RAW, either physically by Kane or emotionally by Eve, while Cena - Ryder's storyline best friend, remember - stood by and made concerned faces. In the middle of all this, he was booked to lose the US title he\d spent months chasing.
He'd had it less than four weeks, including the Christmas holiday, and was never given the usual rematch: he never got to get his revenge on his heel tormentors, either. Ryder spent months being battered back down the card again: if he was in a tag match in 2012, his partner would know they were losing.
Wrestlers being punished by the office for some major infraction have taken less of a humiliating beating, and all Cardona did was work his tail off to get over.