WWE star Matt Cardona spoke with Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown about various topics, including his potential return to the company using his real name.
Cardona said, “They wanted Matt Cardona. I’m proud of that. That they thought the Matt Cardona I built on the independents was more valuable than Zack Ryder. And I’m grateful for Zack Ryder, because without him and my previous time in WWE, there’s no Matt Cardona. Everything I learned, and not just putting matches together, but how to do interviews like this, how to market myself, how to sell merchandise, I learned it in WWE.”
On spending over a decade with WWE as Zack Ryder before being released in 2020:
“When I got released in 2020, I knew Zack Ryder was dead. And as grateful as I was for him, he taught me everything. And WWE taught me everything I needed to become a superstar outside of WWE. That’s what I did. I reinvented myself, rebranded, and had the most fun and the most success I ever had in my career.”
On how his goal was to always be the WWE Champion:
“But the goal was always to be WWE Champion. You can’t be WWE Champion unless you’re in WWE. As awesome as the independents were, I wanted to wrestle on SmackDown. I wanted to wrestle in Madison Square Garden again, or have a WrestleMania moment … My dream was never to be a pro wrestler. My dream was to be a WWE Superstar.”
