3. Zack Ryder – ‘Z! True Long Island Story’
Starting his WWE career as Brett Major, one half of the Major Brothers Tag Team, Matthew Brett Cardona soon became known as Zack Ryder, a character based on the success ‘Jersey Shore’, a cheesy reality TV show that was hot at that time.
After splitting up from his Tag Team partner Curt Hawkins, Zack became a singles wrestler on ‘ECW on ScYFy’, but still wrestled as a heel, more often than not doing the job for other Mid-Carders.
In February 2011 Zack Ryder felt underutilised on WWE TV, so he started a regular YouTube web show called “Z! True Long Island Story”.
Nobody would have believed that this web series would get him over, but it did and Zack actually became a star.
The internet talking about someone is one thing, and doesn’t always mean much, but in this case, it got him over in WWE, as Fans started cheering for him, chanting his name whenever he was around and even when he wasn’t, as they were often chanting “We want Ryder!”
It’s safe to say that without his self-promoting on the internet, he wouldn’t have become the star that he eventually became, at least not anywhere near that quickly.
Him being over with the Fans also got him his first singles title run, when he defeated Dolph Ziggler for the United States Championship at the WWE TLC 2011 PPV.
After being buried in the John Cena/Kane/Eve Torres storyline in early 2012, where he was portrayed as a complete geek & loser, it went downhill for Zack again.
He was used as an undercard talent to get everybody else over and that hasn’t really changed much till this day, where he’s wrestling on WWE NXT as one half of a tag team called The Hype Bros.
