Some WWE Fans Don’t Know Who Matt Cardona Is Admits Chelsea Green

Chelsea Green knows Matt Cardona has a lot of work to do, as there are plenty of WWE fans who simply don’t know who he is.

Matt Cardona is better known to WWE fans for his many years in the company as Zack Ryder. Once he was released in 2020, Cardona, under his own name, went on an iconic indie run that saw him grab headlines for a death match with Nick Gage and become NWA World Heavyweight Champion.

The self-proclaimed “Indie God” just couldn’t keep WWE’s name out of his mouth, however, and the inevitable happened on the first SmackDown of 2026 when Cardona made his shock return.

That came just a few weeks after Cardona had returned as a surprise entrant in the Last Time Is Now Tournament, but under his old moniker of Zack Ryder. That is despite Cardona insisting for years that Ryder was “dead” and any return to WWE would be under his own name.

It seems he got his way as he was introduced as Matt Cardona on SmackDown, albeit with a slight nod to his Zack Ryder past during his entrance.

Chelsea Green & Matt Cardona Waited 5 Years For Huge WWE Moment

Now Cardona’s wife, Chelsea Green, has had her say on his comeback. Speaking to TMZ Sports, Green explained that she had no nerves for Cardona’s SmackDown return as they had been used up during his cameo as Ryder:

I think I got all my nerves out of the way when he debuted at the John Cena’s last match tournament. So, it wasn’t as much nervousness as it was then in Albany, but it was a different feeling because we’ve now waited for this moment for five years.

And I know how hard I worked to get back here. He worked even harder to get back here. He worked twice as long on the indies this time around and he really reinvented himself and that was also kind of like where a little bit of the nerves came into play.

Green explained that a lot of thought went into transitioning Cardona away from his Zack Ryder past, as she admitted many WWE fans simply won’t know about his indie run and will only remember Ryder:

How are we going to go from transitioning him out of Zack Ryder and into Matt Cardona and still paying respects to who he was and the fact that some fans will only remember Zack Ryder? They won’t have known his indie run. They won’t have known that he trended worldwide for a death match against Nick Gage. They won’t know that he’s now the indie god or that he’s a completely different person, that he that he never was a heel in WWE and now spent the past five years as a heel.

All those things are things we need to now introduce the WWE universe to. So it’s kind of a whole new bunch of nerves, but it’s just more excitement than anything.