The biggest moment of Zack Ryder’s WWE career took place at WrestleMania 32 in 2016, where he won the ladder match to become the Intercontinental Champion.
Although he lost the Title the next night on RAW, his victory was shocking and memorable.
Ryder was added to the match just days before the event and it happened because of something he said to DX member Road Dogg backstage.
Here’s what Ryder told Chris Van Vliet during an interview on Insight:
“I knew. Yeah, I knew (I was going to win the Title when I met you before the event). So, at that time I was also going to NXT on my off days to try to get this Hype Bros thing, me and Mojo (Rawley).
But then I was still going to RAW, SmackDown. Before RAW and SmackDown, they were filming whatever it was, Main Event, Superstars, whatever. And this goes back to the ‘Always Ready’ and the three things I can control.
Forget who I was wrestling, but the next day at SmackDown I heard that Vince, Vince McMahon in his dressing room, his office whatever. Before RAW, eating a steak or whatever, looked up and I was on Main Event. (Vince McMahon) said, ‘Why aren’t we doing something with this guy?’
And a couple of weeks later I heard that I was on this internal list to be in the ladder match. ‘What, Me? I’m not even on TV. I’m not doing anything’. And of course next week I heard I’m off the list. But it was cool to be considered, right?
So Neville was going to be the last guy in that ladder match. He breaks his ankle or something on a Monday and Tuesday I found everyone I could, Road Dogg specifically, who was high up on the writing team of the time.
I just spilled my guts to ‘em on why I deserve to be in that match over anybody. And one thing that I said, which was not a planned line, it just came out, was that, ‘I never heard my music play at WrestleMania’ and he later told me that, that line was what made him go bat for me.”
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