10 WWE Fates Worse Than Burial
6. Zack Ryder's Empire Is Destroyed/Stolen
The most insane thing about the total on-screen destruction of Zack Ryder remains that the whole point of his eventually-crushed dream was to make sh*tloads of money for WWE.
Resentful of the audience he'd built by himself and/or how said audience showed more passion for their favourite wrestler than the ones WWE told them to like, the company only offered breadcrumbs with an eventual United States Championship win, and even those were laced with arsenic.
Ryder's one moment of glory against Dolph Ziggler in December 2011 ultimately became a teachable moment to any wrestlers that actually believed the brass ring b*lllocks. As damaging a run as any in the decade that lost Vince McMahon his monopoly, Ryder's punishment booking for what felt like an eternity in early 2012 told every single performer to shut their f*cking mouths, do their f*cking jobs and keep their f*cking fingers crossed, because nothing else was going to work if the boss didn't see it.
Typically, they strip-mined what they did like about the 'Ryder Revolution' and trumpet it to this day. Twitter and YouTube were barely on the organisation's radar then. Now, they're chapter headings in every corporate presentation.