Matt Cardona is “always ready,” and this mentality has certainly been beneficial throughout his free agency. From his breakout success with Game Changer Wrestling to his prominence with IMPACT Wrestling, Cardona has been thriving in recent months.
In a recent appearance on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Cardona looked back on the journey he has taken since his WWE release. He reflected on his first major stop in which he worked a few dates for All Elite Wrestling and explained that, upon the completion of this deal, he wasn’t in a big rush to take his next step due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I did AEW, I had a short-term deal with them, like three shows or four shows and that was great, but it didn’t escalate to anything else,” said Cardona. “They didn’t offer me a deal and I wasn’t gonna beg for one, either. You know, so I was just kinda sitting around. And at the time, we were kinda still in the middle of a pandemic where it wasn’t quite safe to do these independent shows. There were some going on, but it wasn’t really the safest thing to do.”
Cardona explained how the success of his popular podcast, The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast, allowed him to adopt this mindset in what could be considered perhaps the most difficult period of time wrestlers have faced in recent memory. While Cardona knew he wanted to return to the ring by the time the new year rolled around, he couldn’t come back as readily as he might have wished.
“And I said alright, well damn, now it’s January 1, I haven’t wrestled since September,” said Cardona. “I better start reaching out, you know, I better start reaching to other places. And I actually did reach out to IMPACT, and they said there was nothing for me. I’m like well s—-, that’s on me, I guess, because I didn’t go there when it was offered to me.”
Thankfully for Cardona, IMPACT Wrestling wound up bringing him in anyway; he made his debut for the company at the Hard to Kill pay-per-view in January. Since then, he has been one of the company’s featured players. Now, as he continues to reach new heights, the GCW World Champion knows he could “bounce around”, but he likes the way he fits in with IMPACT Wrestling. In the interview, Cardona compared the path he has followed to that of IMPACT Wrestling; he feels like they have a lot in common, and that’s why he believes the two sides are an excellent match.
“I hate using this term free agent but I guess technically I am,” said Cardona. “IMPACT has been awesome, IMPACT is my priority right now, but I don’t have a contract there. So I guess I could show up anywhere. I would love to just bounce around, but IMPACT is somewhere I feel I have a lot of opportunity, and as soon as I got there, I felt welcome there, I felt like it was a great place to be.
“I feel like Matt Cardona and IMPACT, our paths have kind of [been] parallel , where there’s been highs and lows and highs and lows. And people have counted me out [and] IMPACT out, but I feel we’re both on the up-and-up, and that’s why I feel like IMPACT is the perfect spot for me right now.”
The full interview is available here:
