It would take two things to get Matt Cardona to return to WWE

Since his run as Zack Ryder ended with his release from WWE back in 2020, Matt Cardona’s turned himself into a big fish in the smaller ponds of places like Impact, GCW, MLW, and the NWA.

But the self-styled Indy God has a bunch of connections back at his old place of employment, including friends like Cody Rhodes and The Miz – not to mention his wife, reigning WWE Women’s Tag champ Chelsea Green. And there are certain things you can only get when you wrestle for the industry leader.

Cardona mentioned a few of those while telling Sean Ross Sapp on Fightful’s The Hump podcast what WWE would have to offer him to get him to go back:

“Listen, if I get a phone call right now, of course I’d pick it up and we’d have a conversation. I’d be lying if I said I never wanted to wrestle at Madison Square Garden again or wrestle at WrestleMania again, but for right now, I’m having the time of my life, I’m having so much fun, I’m making so much money.

“What would it take? Cash and creative, you know? There’s no guarantees in wrestling, but I’d need some intention, you know what I’m saying? I don’t just want to be another guy on the roster, been there and done that, and nothing against that, but I did that. I’m over it.”

Sounds like he wants a version of what Cody got. Would WWE ever offer that to Cardona? He’s someone they definitely didn’t see as much more than a midcarder during his first run. But like Rhodes, he’s reinvented himself successfully outside of their system – and that might impress some of the current folks in charge.

And speaking of the people running things in WWE creative right now, we hear the guy who might have buried him for getting over on his own a decade ago doesn’t have a lot of say in creative right now…