Former WWE Superstar Matt “Zack Ryder” Cardona recently did an Instagram Live Q&A session. During the Q&A, he revealed that Vince McMahon pulled his first t-shirt design from WWE.com because he thought it was promoting TNA Wrestling and Spike TV at the time. The t-shirt had a slogan on the back that read, “Take Care, Spike Your Hair”. WWE later replaced the t-shirt with a slogan on the back that said, “Are you serious bro?”
Ryder also claimed WWE officials wouldn’t let him wear his Internet Championship belt because it would make him look like a “mark for himself.” You can check out some highlights from the Q&A session below:
On how he couldn’t get approval to wear the internet title on TV: “So I was presenting it to someone to, you know, to get approval to wear it on television. I was denied and I was told that I’m a mark for myself, which isn’t true. But like I said, I didn’t actually think I was the Million Dollar Champion or the Internet champion. I explained. It’s just like the Million Dollar Championship, right? It’s an accessory. It’s cool because with a gimmick and you could have sold these things. You could have made a killing selling these things, the foam, the replicas. But that did not happen. I never wore that on WWE programming, but it’s in the video game. There’s a T-shirt with it and my action figure, but I never wore it on TV.”
On how he thinks he and WWE lost money over their disapproval of the title: “I think there was some money lost, a lot of money lost, especially at that time. Like I said, replicas of the foam stuff they sell at the events, like the merchandise stuff or even, you know, Mattel, you know, toy belts, but whatever. It’s definitely my most prized possession.”
