Matt Cardona recently applied to trademark “Zack Ryder” but it wasn’t for the reason you might think.
Matt Hardy and Jon Alba welcomed Matt Cardona as a special guest on the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, and the trio spoke about how “Broken Matt” and that world were introduced on television. After Alba made a remark about Zack Ryder never taking a dip in the Lake Of Reincarnation, Cardona shared some new insight about why he tried to trademark his old ring name, and it wasn’t for a run on the indies.
“It’s funny because I think it’s out there that I tried to get the Zack Ryder trademark. It had lapsed, WWE had let it go and I tried to get it. Of course, the dirt sheets picked it up, but it wasn’t going to be Zack Ryder on the indies,” he explained. “I wanted to film a “Zack Ryder vs. Matt Cardona’ cinematic match.
“Matt vs. Zack, or do a two-pack in my Major Bendies [line of figures]. I knew there was a chance that WWE would try to stop that and they did,” Cardona stated. “They contacted my lawyer and I said OK, you got it. I’m not fighting this. It’s not worth the time or the money, but it would have been cool to do a Zack Ryder vs. Matt Cardona cinematic match. And maybe I can if I tiptoe around intellectual property and stuff like that, but it definitely would have been cool to promote it as Zack Ryder vs. Matt Cardona instead of Matt Cardona vs. ‘Long Island Guy’ or ‘Broski’, you know?”
TOYETIC! @nwa @majorwfpod
?: @MikeDurband pic.twitter.com/Eu94sUghnl
— Matt Cardona (@TheMattCardona) February 17, 2023
Cardona recently appeared on Jason Powell’s Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast and said he backed away from the legal battle that would ensue, noting that it’s still WWE’s intellectual property and they would win if it ever went to court.
During a December 2022 interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Cardona mentioned the pitch for a cinematic match between himself and Zack Ryder. Cardona noted it was an interesting concept but there were some obvious obstacles, including not owning the Ryder name.
“Someone came to me and they actually wanted to do that but the thing is, I don’t own the Zack Ryder IP, intellectual property, so we’d have to dance around that. And this is going to sound horrible to say too, but I just don’t have the f-ckin’ time to do it,” Cardona said. “Not only [do I not have time to shave the beard and grow it back], I don’t have the bandwidth. I’m stretched so thin, some days I need to plan out when I’m going to take a shit, that’s how busy I am. I love it though.
“Typically I’m wrestling or I do an appearance on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I do the podcast on Monday, we do this thing called WhatNot, like a live auction every Monday and the podcast has turned into wrestling figures, wrestling shows, live shows, so I’m doing podcast work every single day,” Cardona explained. “What started off as a 45-minute, once a week show has turned into a f-ckin’ business, which is f-ckin’ incredible and insane at the same time.”
Read More: Matt Cardona: Chelsea Green Needed To Go Back To WWE, She Didn’t Even Have A Cup Of Coffee There
