Matt Cardona was never offered an AEW contract, despite reports to the contrary.
The former Intercontinental Champion was released by the WWE in 2020 and embarked on a short run with AEW. He teamed with Cody Rhodes briefly but wasn’t offered a contract and departed after a series of matches.
After Matt Cardona became one of the top indie wrestlers in the world, he was called back to AEW. First, it was for an open challenge match against Adam Copeland. Then he was drafted in to face Chris Jericho for the ROH Championship.
However, after each run, AEW failed to offer Matt Cardona a contract. This is despite Dave Meltzer reporting that they had offered him a deal to work with AEW.
Matt Cardona set the record straight when appearing on The Arial Helwani Show. He confirmed he was never offered an AEW contract despite is numerous appearance in AEW.
Matt Cardona On Not Being Offered A Contract By Tony Khan
“So, in the very beginning, I came in, and I helped Cody. We had a tag match—which we won—a pay-per-view match. I had, like, three shirts, two matches, but never got a call. To this day, I don’t know why. I was told, ‘The contract’s coming,’ but it never came. After a while, I realized, ‘It’s not coming.’ That’s when I went to Impact.” Matt Cardona said.
“A few years later, I got the call to wrestle Adam Copeland—my absolute dream match. He’s my guy—not just because of Edge Heads, but he was the guy I looked up to growing up. We had that one match, I thought we killed it. But… nothing. Okay, fine. I kept doing my thing.”
Matt Cardona then added, “Then, about a month ago, I got called. ‘Hey, do you want to wrestle Chris Jericho at Hammerstein?’ Hell yes, I do! Another guy I grew up idolizing. We did weeks of TV, got great reactions in-house, social media was buzzing, it was the bestselling show of the week. We had a killer match at Hammerstein Ballroom.”
“And still… nothing. I’m just going week by week. That’s how I live my life. I can’t think too far ahead because there’s so much going on in my head. I can’t plan for next weekend, I just need to make every single moment the best it can possibly be.”
Finally, Matt Cardona said, “Even Dave Meltzer reported I got a contract. Of course, I mean, I love my time there. Even this past December, I loved it. It’s a great company; it’s great for the business. Everyone is working their ass off there. But… Everything has to be the right situation. And no—I wasn’t offered anything.”
