During this past Wednesday's episode of All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite, Matt Cardona made his debut for the company when he saved Cody Rhodes from an attack by The Dark Order. Cardona obviously spent years as a jobber in WWE, but looked phenomenal on the Wednesday night show, and things are already looking up for him.
Now, AEW's Chris Jericho has weighed in, and he's definitely a fan of the former WWE Superstar.
"I’m going to tell you what I think of Matt Cardona because there might be some issues with him being on the show. I don’t think there are issues in a bad way with me. I told Matt Cardona like five years ago maybe eight years ago to get the hell out of WWE because there comes a time where you can’t be a punching bag anymore because he’s far too good for that."
"He looks like a million bucks, he knows how to work, he’s very solid in the ring, he’s very good creative, he just needs some confidence and a chance," Jericho explained. "I’m really excited that Cody and Tony [Khan] decided to give him a shot. I know I would love to work with him. I don’t want any more of this Long Island Iced Z bullsh*t, it’s gone. It’s like the first night that [Jake] Hager was in AEW and the people were chanting we the people."
"I said that’s done, that was a bad idea from bad creative and it’s the same thing with Long Island Iced Z, the former name, the former ZR, he’s dead and buried. He’s done, this is a whole different thing, we’re going to show how much of an ass-kicker Matt Cardona is…he works very solid, very strong, believable, he looks like a monster especially in our company. So I am excited to have him in AEW and he is more than welcome to be there with us."
Clearly, we're going to see a very different side of the wrestler formerly known as Zack Ryder, and it will be fun seeing how the Cody and Matt Cardona vs. John Silver and Alex Reynolds tag team match on the next episode of Dynamite plays out.