Matt Cardona Proud That WWE Thought There Was More Value In ‘Matt Cardona’ Than ‘Zack Ryder’

Matt Cardona is proud that WWE saw the value in his real name/ring name.

It was in late 2025 that Matt Cardona returned to WWE as ‘Zack Ryder’ for the Last Time is Now tournament.

He would come back to WWE full-time as Matt Cardona. While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Cardona shared that he’s proud that WWE saw more value in bringing him back full-time as Cardona as opposed to Ryder.

“Okay, so then I think it’s a one-off. I get the Triple H point, which is great. I sold some 8x10s with that. Thank you, Triple H. He’s like, ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ and they did. About a few weeks later, I was at WrestleCade, so I guess after Thanksgiving, I’m eating dinner with the boys after signing all day and a match, and I got a call like, ‘We wanna sign you.’ I’m thinking, okay. I’m just assuming it’s as Zack Ryder so I get all this new Zack Ryder gear made, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then a week or so before my debut, I hear through the grapevine, ‘You’re gonna be Matt Cardona.’ Now I’m like, Oh sh*t, I need new Matt Cardona gear.’ But I am very proud that they thought there was more value in Matt Cardona than Zack Ryder. Because who else has left? Okay, Razor Ramon leaves, and he comes back as Scott Hall. He went to WCW. I did this all in the indies. No one’s ever done that before. Gone to the indies and come back as their indie persona.” He continued, “It was a crazy gift. It was a crazy couple of months because Chelsea (Green) and I were moving into a new house. It was the whole contract negotiations, and not like I want more money. Nothing like that. It was more like because I have all these outside things that I’m involved with, and WWE is so cool about me keeping my podcast, my toy line. But there was a couple of things legally that we had to work through. It wasn’t just like okay, here’s the contract, sign it.”

Cardona is on the SmackDown brand. He last wrestled on television in June and picked up a tag win with Danhausen.