Matt Cardona was not amused when Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes discussed his WWE ambitions on Rhodes’ podcast, and he says he deliberately said nothing at the time because he knew he could not win the argument.
Asked about it by Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Cardona did not soften his first reaction.
“Oh boy, honestly, I was pissed.”
His objection was to the characterisation rather than the joke itself.
“They made it seem that all I would say is I want to be back in WWE. I’d only talk about it when I’d be doing things like this, and you asked me a question. So it bothered me, but I’m over it now.”
He was clear he did not think either man meant anything by it.
“It wasn’t malicious. I just did not appreciate that I didn’t get a chance to come on and tell my version until I got re-signed.”
Cardona said the decision to stay quiet was a calculated one.
“At the time, there’s nothing I could have put out on social media because I would have lost in the court of public opinion. So I’m like, you know what? I’m just gonna let it be. And I think I spliced it up and made it seem like they were putting me over. But I wasn’t gonna go after them because I would have lost that fight.”
He eventually appeared on Rhodes’ show after re-signing with WWE and gave his account there.
Cardona spent nearly six years outside WWE following his release in April 2020, building a run on the independent scene that included world titles for NWA and GCW, before returning full time on the January 2 edition of SmackDown.
