Matt Cardona Says He Was Annoyed at Podcast Comments From Cody Rhodes & Kevin Owens

The former Zack Ryder didn’t see the funny side in their conversation.

In 2020, Zack Ryder’s 14-year run with WWE came to an end. In his time away, Ryder developed a big following on the independent circuit under his real name of Matt Cardona. However, while performing on the independent scene, the star kept the door open to a possible WWE return, drawing comments from Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens on Rhodes’ “What Do You Want to Talk About?” podcast which mocked Cardona for seemingly wanting come back while promoting himself as “The Indy God”. Now, it seems as though that Cardona didn’t appreciate their observations.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Cardona expressed his disdain towards the jokes at his expense.

“Honestly, I was pissed! Because they made it seem that all I would say is I want to be back in WWE. Blah blah. I’d only talk about it when I’d be doing things like this, and you ask me a question. So it bothered me, but I’m over it now. Yes, it wasn’t malicious. I just did not appreciate that I didn’t get a chance to come on and tell my version until I got re-signed. At the time, there’s nothing I could have put out on social media, because I would have lost in the court of public opinion. I think I spliced it up and made it seem like they were putting me over. But I wasn’t going to go after them, because I would have lost that fight.”

-Matt Cardona

His time on the indies included reigns as NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion, GCW World Champion, and DDT Universal Champion, and, at the start of this year, WWE did take notice of his work. On January 2, the former Zack Ryder officially re-signed with the company, under as Matt Cardona, with many surprised that he retained his indie name.

Elsewhere in the interview, Cardona expressed how proud he is that WWE allowed him to keep his name rather than being reverted to the Zack Ryder character. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Matt Cardona as soon as we hear more.