Matt Cardona (fka Zack Ryder) held a Q&A on his Instagram recently where the former WWE star revealed why management never let him wear his Internet championship at WWE events. Cardona states that he attempted to get approval to wear his fictitious title, but was denied and referred to as a “Mark for himself.”
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.
Cardona would also tell a story about one of his first ideas for a t-shirt that included the phrase, “take care spike your hair,” his famous sign-off catch phrase from his Z! True Long Island Youtube series. The shirt would get pulled by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon because McMahon assumed it was in reference to TNA, which was on SPIKE TV at the time.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)