One MIND-BLOWING Secret From EVERY WWE WrestleMania

14. WrestleMania 28 | The Other Dream Match

Credit to WWE: as mean-spirited as the promotion often was under Vince McMahon, they at least did it with a comedic panache. 

In late 2011, a lot of fans wanted WWE to push Zack Ryder. He was a bit developmental cookie cutter in the ring, but his Jersey Shore-inspired persona, built entirely on his own entrepreneurial spirit, endeared him to fans. And the thing about Ryder is that he played a self-deprecating clown. On his own YouTube channel. He was just trying to get a regular storyline in the midcard of his beloved soapy WWE TV. He wasn’t delusional, didn’t think he was better than anybody else, and they still deemed him an arrogant prick. So they put him in a wheelchair and had Kane push him off the stage. You wanted this guy to get a push, no? 

This was in early 2012. If WWE did this to the poor prick after he was cheered over the Rock wrestling his first match in seven years at Madison Square Garden, then it was highly unlikely that he was getting a key singles match at WrestleMania, which getting over typically earns. Indeed he didn’t; he made up the numbers in and was on the losing side of a throwaway 12 man tag team match. 

One writer was on his side, though; per the January 5 issue of the Observer, somebody in creative thought that Ryder should do some sort of angle with the Situation of Jersey Shore fame. Whether that would have amounted to a match, or some daft backstage skit, is anybody’s guess. That’s because it didn’t happen, presumably on the basis of “This is a WrestleMania meeting, why are we talking about Zack Ryder?”