Zack Ryder (now using his real name, Matt Cardona) was among the Superstars recently released by WWE, and he spoke to SiriusXM's Busted Open Radio for his first post-WWE interview this week. Early on in his career, he started getting over in a big way after launching his own YouTube channel, and while he was pushed for a while, that abruptly ended, and he was mostly used as a jobber in the years that followed.
There were some bright spots, of course, but Cardona has now explained where he thinks things went wrong.
"I started a YouTube show, it took off and I got over," he says. "I don’t think WWE accepted it. I knew that was my plan, I didn’t think it was gonna happen as fast as it did and as organically as it did. When I started that YouTube show? I wanted to either get noticed, or get fired. Because I wanted that buzz. So I would get pushed in WWE or get fired and have the buzz elsewhere, you know? Luckily I didn’t get fired! Luckily I got noticed, and I got used on television more."
"The term punished? I mean, listen, at the time when everything was going down? When I was getting pushed off the stage in a wheelchair? I could have in retrospect gone to Vince [McMahon] and said ‘what’s going on here!?’ At the time I was so young, so naive. So I said ‘oh this is part of the plan’ you know? ‘I’d wrestle Kane at Backlash next month!’ I wasn’t aware enough or mature enough to knock on the boss’s door and say, ‘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."
What happened really wasn't Cardona's fault, and fans never stopped supporting him, so WWE clearly made a major mistake. Now, it's easy to imagine him having a bright future on the independent scene or possible in All Elite Wrestling, a company many fans are convinced he will head to given his friendship with Cody Rhodes.