One thing that every WWE Superstar dreams of is to somehow, some way get their WrestleMania moment. Matt Cardona got that moment checked off his bucket list back in 2016 at the 32nd edition of the Showcase of Immortals.
Recently while speaking on the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, the former WWE Superstar revealed how his iconic WrestleMania 32 moment came to fruition.
Matt Cardona revealed that a few days before his ladder match for the Intercontinental title, he knew that he was leaving the Grandest Stage of Them all as the new champion. Cardona also revealed that Vince McMahon once saw him perform on WWE Main Event and was impressed that he wanted to use him in a major program.
“I knew. Yeah, I knew. If you want the whole backstory… So, at that time I was also going to NXT on my off days to try to get this Hype Bros thing, me and Mojo [Rawley]. But then I was still going to Raw, SmackDown. Before Raw and SmackDown, they were filming whatever it was, Main Event, Superstars, whatever. And this goes back to the ‘Always ready’ and the three things I can control. Forget who I was wrestling, but the next day at SmackDown I heard that Vince, Vince McMahon in his dressing room, his office whatever. Before Raw, eating a steak or whatever, looked up and I was on Main Event. [Vince McMahon] said, ‘Why aren’t we doing something with this guy?’”
Matt Cardona: I never heard my music play at WrestleMania
The self-proclaimed Indy God revealed that he pleaded with the creative team to get the spot in the WrestleMania ladder match.
“And a couple of weeks later I heard that I was on this internal list to be in the ladder match. ‘What, Me? I’m not even on TV. I’m not doing anything.’ And of course next week I heard I’m off the list. But it was cool to be considered right?
“So Pac, [Neville] was going to be the last guy in that ladder match. He breaks his ankle or something on a Monday and Tuesday I found everyone I could, Road Dogg specifically, who was high up on the writing team of the time. I just spilled my guts to ‘em on why I deserve to be in that match over anybody. And one thing that I said, which was not a planned line, it just came out, was that, ‘I never heard my music play at WrestleMania’ and he later told me that, that line was what made him go bat for me,” Matt Cardona said.
Would you like to see the former Intercontinental Champion back in WWE?
