Matt Cardona Says WWE Made Him Furious Weeks After His Release

Matt Cardona (formerly known as Zack Ryder) was one of the many wrestlers to get released back in [...]

Matt Cardona (formerly known as Zack Ryder) was one of the many wrestlers to get released back in mid-April to get released by the WWE. Since then Cardona has dropped a few hints about his plans once his 90-day no-compete clause end, none of which involved the WWE, but his former company apparently tried to get one more favor out of the former United States Champion. Cardona explained on a recent episode of The Major Wrestling Figures Podcast that after he was let go the WWE reached out to his fiancee Chelsea Green and asked if they could use their personal swimming pool for a SmackDown segment involving Mandy Rose and Otis.

Needless to say, Cardona was not happy.

"I'm sitting by the pool with Chelsea, and she has a weird look on her face," Cardona said (h/t Wrestling Inc. for transcript). "She's checking her phone, and I'm like, 'Babe, what's up?' She's like, 'Uh, someone from WWE asked me if Otis, Mandy Rose, and a camera crew can come here to film a pool scene for SmackDown.' I was shaking in anger. Shaking in anger. You fired me, but you want to use my pool? ... I had a tweet sent, and I say this sometimes, 'Don't press send.' [Laughs] It was a 'Don't press send' tweet. I was just very, like, 'You fired me, but you want to use my pool a couple weeks later?' ... I was pissed. The fact is they didn't even ask me, they asked her!"

WWE wound up using a different pool for the segment, which parodied a scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

In a recent interview with Busted Open Radio, Cardona blamed himself for getting buried back in 2012 after building up a fan base from his YouTube Channel.

"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 said. "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."

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