Matt Cardona Clarifies His Contract Status With AEW

Matt Cardona, formerly known as Zack Ryder, made his surprise debut on AEW Dynamite last week by saving Cody Rhodes from a surprise attack from The Dark Order's Alex Reynolds and John Silver. Since then AEW officials released Cardona's first t-shirt and booked him in a tag team match with Rhodes against Reynolds and Silver for this week's Dynamite, but they never outright confirmed his status with the company. Cardona took the liberty of doing that himself in an interview with Sportskeeda, clarifying that he's on a short-term deal at the moment.

"Yes, so there's a couple appearances, a few appearances right now, but listen...I'm not here for a little vacation," Cardona said. "I'm here to win the TNT Title, the AEW Title, to get all those action figures! I'm here because I want to be here. You know what I'm saying? So we'll get there. Just stayed tuned. Everybody just take a chill pill, and relax, and enjoy the show!"

In a previous interview with ComicBook, Cardona talked about his excitement regarding AEW as an alternative promotion.

"I love AEW. Cody and Brandi, two of my closest friends," Cardona said. "Would I love to wrestle with Cody in AEW? Absolutely. Guys who were in WWE, like Brodie Lee, I'd love to wrestle. Guys like (Jon) Moxley. I've had kick ass matches with them both. I'd love to do that. But there's also so many guys like Trent (Beretta). A guy like Trent, who I grew up with, who I started in wrestling school with. I'd love to wrestle Trent. I watch the show every week. You have to. I'm a huge AEW fan. So I would love to wrestle... Honestly, there's so many guys like SCU, Christopher Daniels, Kazarian never got in the ring with those guys. There's so many guys. It's not like who do I want to wrestle. It's who I don't want to wrestle and the answer, I want to wrestle everybody. There's nobody on that roster who I don't want to wrestle. That's the answer to the question really."

He also mentioned his desire to face rising star Darby Allin.

"Darby Allin is one of those guys who, I'll be honest, I never really knew anything about him until AEW. And then, you see this guy and he comes out on the skateboard. He's got that cool face paint and he's just got this look about him and this aura and all the pre-tapes and the vignettes. You're invested in this guy. I could definitely have some kick ass matches with him. I'd love to have some good storytelling matches in there because this guy could do some stuff."