Matt Cardona believes leaving WWE and working independently can be incredibly beneficial for wrestlers, but he doesn’t think everyone would find the same level of success.
Speaking with Jeremy Jacobowitz, the former Zack Ryder was asked whether WWE talent who aren’t receiving significant opportunities could benefit from taking a risk, leaving the company and proving themselves by working main events around the world.
Cardona pointed to his own experience following his WWE departure, explaining that the independent wrestling scene forced him to establish himself outside the environment he had known for years. However, he cautioned that it can be a sink-or-swim situation.
“Leaving WWE is where I found myself, right? And, it’s certainly a sink-or-swim environment. Yes, do I think a lot of people would benefit? Sure.
I also think a lot of people would fall flat on their face and flop because some of the, you know, some of the people online, they would say to me, like, ‘Oh, you’re only successful in the indies because you came from WWE.’
Well, then where’s everyone else who ever got fired? You know what I’m saying? No, that’s not—yeah, it helps that I learned so much from WWE, but I took what I learned and, you know, used that and utilized that on the outside. Because if everyone who was fired was a success outside WWE, where are all these people? You know what I’m saying?”
Cardona acknowledged that his years in WWE gave him valuable experience that helped once he entered the independent scene, but rejected the idea that simply having WWE on a résumé guarantees success after leaving the company.
Following his initial WWE departure, Cardona reinvented himself rather than continuing to rely on the Zack Ryder character, establishing a successful run across the independent wrestling scene and several major promotions before eventually returning to WWE.
