9 Times WWE Killed A Popular Star In Less Than 60 Days
8. Zack Ryder
Matthew ‘Zack Ryder’ Cardona’s story is a sad one - one which everyone reading this is probably very familiar with. Ryder did what WWE officials keep telling them to do and reached for those brass rings, through sheer hard work and personality getting himself over without any help from creative.
As thanks for his hard work, he was completely buried only weeks after the triumphant conclusion to the self-generated ‘Ryder Revolution’ angle which saw him win the US title in December 2011 – a title he’d given meaning to again by virtue of his passionate, single-minded pursuit of it. Ryder’s character would never recover.
Eve, Kane and John Cena wielded the shovels on the office’s behalf, destroying every aspect of his onscreen persona by having him lose the title and play the hapless fall guy in Cena’s feud with the Big Red Machine, while simultaneously playing witless patsy to the conniving Eve. All of this happened within the space of just a few weeks. By all accounts, his merchandise had been moving incredibly well up until that point, but if there's one thing WWE value above everything else, it's pure spite.