Matt Cardona Recounts Chelsea Green Putting Him In Contact With Nick Khan, Details Video Call With Triple H

Chelsea Green directed Nick Khan’s attention to Matt Cardona.

Matt Cardona is back in WWE full-time, and he is on the same brand as the first-ever Women’s United States Champion, his wife, Chelsea Green.

Chris Van Vliet interviewed Cardona and revealed that his return to WWE as ‘Zack Ryder’ in ‘The Last Time is Now’ tournament started when Chelsea spoke to WWE President Nick Khan about him.

“So from September to when I redebut in January, it’s like a mindf*ck for me. It was such a whirlwind of things. I’m definitely gonna mix up the timeline a bit. But it starts in September, I believe. I’m doing TNA, but I’m not signed to TNA. I’m asked if I want to participate in the NXT invasion, go invade NXT. I’m like, well, if they think I really work for TNA — I went there and I got paid, right? But I didn’t have a contract. I’m like, I’ll sneak my way in here. So I did the invasion, which led to a match with Josh Briggs. I said, all right, that’s cool. I texted Triple H, ‘Thank you for the opportunity.’ He texted back. It was all good. Shortly thereafter, maybe within that week, Chelsea (Green) was in Saudi Arabia doing media for the Royal Rumble, and she was there with Nick Khan and said something to the effect of, ‘Did you see my husband on NXT?’ He said something like, ‘I’ve never met him. Give him my number.’ So she did. I called him or texted him immediately. ‘Hey, it’s Matt Cardona,’ blah, blah, blah… I think it’s that day or the next day he calls me, and he’s very straight to the point, which I love and respect. He said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I want to come back.’ It was as simple as that. He’s like, ‘Okay, well, we need to set up a call with you and Triple H.’ I’m like, ‘This is great. Here we go.’ That week we have a FaceTime with Triple H, or Zoom call, whatever, and it was a good call, but it wasn’t a good call, you know what I’m saying? I’m like, there’s nothing here. There was no offer to come back. It was just a very friendly, civil, respectful call. I’m like, alright, well, I guess back to being the Indie God, whatever.”

Following up on that, Cardona said when he had the video call with Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, he did express that he was interested in coming back full-time.

“I definitely said I was interested in coming back, but there was no, ‘Yeah, we want to have you back.’ There was no, here’s your offer. There was none of that, right? A couple of weeks go by, and he texted me, ‘Hey, do you have time to talk today?’ I’m like, ‘Yep,’ and that’s when he pitched me the Cena tournament thing. I said I’m in, and I’m assuming that I’m going to do this representing TNA as Matt Cardona. So SmackDown films Fridays. You fly out Thursdays. Tuesday of that week, I get a text from John Cone from WWE Talent Relations, and he’s like, ‘Hey, we got some t-shirts for you to approve,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s cool, but how do you guys have my Matt Cardona logos?’ It’s like, ‘Oh no, you’re Zack Ryder.’ I’m thinking, oh f*ck. Not that I don’t want to be Zack Ryder. I don’t have any gear, because what am I gonna wear? Everything else I sold off, so everything that I had was either one-off, like WrestleMania title (ring) gear or stuff that was all falling apart because it’s years old. I’m like, oh no, luckily always ready. Got gear made in 24 hours, and then did the Cena tournament as Zack Ryder.”

Cardona was last in action on television in June. He competed on SmackDown and teamed with Danhausen to defeat Angel and Berto.