Former WWE Star Claims Vince McMahon Rejected Shirt Design As It Promoted TNA

One of the WWE stars who was very unfortunately released by the company last month, along with his tag team partner Curt Hawkins, was former United States and Intercontinental Champion Zack Ryder.

Ryder had one of the most interesting runs in recent WWE memory, with the former Tag Team Champion organically getting himself over with fans through his social media presence, despite not being featured on TV a great deal.

During the height of his popularity, in 2011, Ryder pitched a t-shirt design to WWE that would have featured the slogan “take care, spike your hair” on the back. Answering fan questions on his Instagram Live over the weekend, Ryder revealed why the design never made it to TV.

Ryder revealed that due to Impact Wrestling being on the Spike Network at the time, Vince McMahon didn’t want the rival promotion’s broadcasters being “promoted” on WWE programming. Ryder revealed that WWE made the decision to replace the aforementioned slogan with the phrase “are you serious bro?”.

Another of Ryder’s awesome idea was the Internet Championship. During the Instagram Live, Ryder speaks about WWE never fully understanding how much money the Internet Championship and various other parts of his gimmick could have made them:

“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. 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.”

It remains to be seen what the future holds for Zack Ryder following his unfortunate WWE release just last month. Many have speculated that due to his close personal relationship with Cody Rhodes, Ryder could end up in AEW.

Thanks to Fightful for the transcription.

• zack ryder
• TNA
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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