At Final Battle, Matt Cardona failed to win the ROH World Championship.
That’s because the 39-year-old was outnumbered by The Learning Tree. Cardona came extremely close to pulling off the huge victory over Chris Jericho, but Bryan Keith was the determining factor that allowed the ROH World Champion to retain.
Now for Cardona, it’s back to the drawing board. The Indy God posted on X (Twitter) that even though he didn’t get the job done on Friday, he doesn’t consider it a loss.
As for the former WWE star, it was rumored that he was offered an AEW contract before his big world title match on December 20th. In an update on that news, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select confirmed that Matt Cardona has yet to put pen to paper. In fact, it doesn’t sound as if Cardona has any interest in signing with AEW any time soon.
“There have been rumors that he has been offered a contract, but I don’t know if that is to be true or whatever the case may be there,” Sapp said. “He has told people he wasn’t signed and wasn’t signing as of now with AEW. The details on that are very few and far between.”
Cardona himself hasn’t publicly stated why he turned down an AEW contract. However, the 39-year-old said during an interview with Sports Illustrated earlier this year that he hoped to finish his career in WWE.
“I think right now in summer 2024, being released from WWE for four years, I honestly feel like I’m closer to the WWE world title than I was when I worked for WWE,”
“I’m proud to be the ‘Indie God,’ I’m proud to be the face of GCW. But when it’s all said and done, I want to end my career in WWE.”
“I want to have another WrestleMania moment, I want to be in Madison Square Garden, but as Matt Cardona. Zack Ryder is dead.”
It’s quite possible that Cardona is simply holding out for a possible contract with his former employer. There’s no word on whether WWE is interested in bringing back the former Zack Ryder, though it wouldn’t be surprising if Cardona ended back where his career began.