Matt Cardona Sends a Message to Cody Rhodes After His WWE Title Loss While Setting Sights on Next Week’s High-Stakes Matchup

Matt Cardona has backed Cody Rhodes to regain the Undisputed WWE title after losing it to Drew McIntyre on SmackDown.

Matt Cardona Sends a Message to Cody Rhodes After His WWE Title Loss While Setting Sights on Next Week’s High-Stakes Matchup

Matt Cardona and Cody Rhodes [via- Fightful]

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Matt Cardona had a backstage interaction with Cody Rhodes prior to his WWE title defense against Drew McIntyre on SmackDown this past Friday. ‘The Indy God’ finished off his interview with Bryon Saxton, in which Cardona talked about making it back to WWE after being away for almost 6 years.

The New Yorker didn’t want to coast off the Zack Ryder name for the rest of his life. The former NWA World Champion reinvented himself on the independent circuit to a degree where he earned the moniker of ‘The Indy God’.

This week on SmackDown, Cardona bumped into Rhodes, and the two hugged it out. ‘The Long Island Ice-Z’ declared his intentions about chasing the Undisputed WWE title, to which Rhodes responded by saying that they’ll revisit the conversation after he’s done with McIntyre.

But as it happened, ‘The American Nightmare’ lost an epic Three Stages of Hell match to ‘The Scottish Psychopath’ after a returning Jacob Fatu inadvertently helped in McIntyre walking out of Berlin as the new WWE Champion. Reacting to the QB1’s heartbreaking title loss, Cardona was confident about his “bud” eventually regaining the world title.

‘The Deathmatch King’, however, reaffirmed his goal of targeting the Undisputed WWE Championship by asserting that it has eluded him his entire career. ‘The Woo Woo Woo Kid’ could take a giant leap in that direction next week on SmackDown. He’s set to battle recent NXT call-up Trick Williams in a high-stakes matchup.

Whoever ends up winning would head straight to Montreal for Saturday Night’s Main Event, where a Fatal-4-Way match will determine the No. 1 contender to the Undisputed WWE title, with Drew McIntyre defending it at the upcoming Royal Rumble PLE in Riyadh. As tempting as it looks on paper, putting away ‘Mr. Whoop That’ wouldn’t be a walk in the park for even a veteran like Matt Cardona.

Chelsea Green sheds light on John Cena’s influence on Matt Cardona’s WWE return

While Matt Cardona never held back on making it clear how badly he wanted to return to WWE all these years, it didn’t actually happen until the beginning of 2026. ‘The Ultimate Broski’ made a one-off return to WWE as Zack Ryder in November 2025 when he showed up as a surprise entrant in The Last Time is Now tournament.

Cardona, however, lost to LA Knight despite throwing the kitchen sink at ‘The Megastar’. But that loss did more good than bad for Cardona in the grander scheme of things.

Chelsea Green on John Cena influencing Matt Cardona's WWE return
Chelsea Green on John Cena influencing Matt Cardona’s WWE return [via- WWE]

Cardona’s wife, Chelsea Green, recently spoke about John Cena‘s contribution in helping her husband get back to WWE. During a chat with TMZ‘s Inside the Ring, Green affirmed that Cena was very supportive of Cardona from the day he lost his job in WWE back in April 2020.

‘The Cenation Leader’, as Green described, was appreciative of the Long Island Loudmouth’s journey on the indies, which Cardona envisioned would lead to WWE calling him back one day.

‘The Hot Mess’ said that even though it was Cardona only who put in the hard yards, Cena using his stroke to get Cardona into that tournament to decide his last opponent made WWE notice what it’d been missing out on not having Matt Cardona as a part of its roster.

‘The Franchise Player’ praised the persistence of both Cardona and Green after the erstwhile Zack Ryder plotted his WWE return on the first SmackDown of 2026, beating Kit Wilson, who has since whined about Cardona being the embodiment of toxic masculinity.

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