Matt Cardona, formerly known as Zack Ryder, is gearing up for his return to the wrestling world once his 90-Day “No Compete” clause from his WWE release officially expires later this month. It’s unclear where Cardona will go next, but he’s already teasing the return of one of his favorite props from his “Long Island Iced Z” days — the Internet Championship. Cardona posted a photo of himself what looks to be a new promo on Thursday morning holding up a new version of the Internet Championship that features his new skull logo on the front.
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Cardona was one of the 30+ wrestlers the WWE let go back on April 15, ending his 14-year run with the company.
Cardona has spoken in numerous interviews about his time with the company, particularly when he managed to get himself over as a fan-favorite back in 2011 only for WWE to push him back down within a year. In a May interview with Busted Open Radio, he went so far as to blame himself for getting buried back then.
“I was at a point in my career where I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing. And I’m not going to give you the whole story, but long story short I started a YouTube show, it took off and I got over. I don’t think WWE expected it, I knew that was my plan, I didn’t think it was going to happen as fast as it did, and as organically as it did. But there’s no denying that it worked,” Cardona said. “When I started that YouTube show, I wanted to either get noticed or get fired. Because I wanted that buzz, the buzz with WWE or the buzz to get fired and have the buzz elsewhere. Luckily, I didn’t get fired, I got noticed and I got used on television more.
“At the time when everything was going on, I got pushed off the stage in wheelchair and chokeslammed off the stage, I could have, in retrospect, gone to Vince McMahon and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’ At the time I was so young, so naive, I said, ‘Oh, this is part of the plan. I’ll just wrestle Kane at Backlash next month,’ or something,” he added. “I wasn’t aware enough or mature enough to knock on the boss’ door and say, ‘Hey, I’m one of the top merch sellers. I’ve been busting my ass, why is this happening?’ So I blame nobody but myself for what went down there.”
