Matt Cardona got himself over and still believes social media is a valuable resource for wrestlers.
Speaking with Kevin Kellam of Sportskeeda Wrestling, Matt Cardona spoke about using social media as a wrestler and building an online presence. Cardona is one of the most well-known wrestlers on social media because of being an early adopter, and he said he took advantage of the situation as the medium was in its early stages.
“Yes, 2011, I started a YouTube show because I saw the writing on the wall for me as Zack Ryder in WWE. I knew there was no plan, and that’s fine. But I wasn’t going to just sit back and take it. I was going to fight, and I was gonna do it my way by starting this YouTube show, and I wasn’t the first person to have a web show. There was Miz and Morrison before me, and I think like JTG and Shad and Santino. But they weren’t filming it. Yeah, Colt [Cabana] had the podcast. Colt even had, as Scotty Goldman, a WWE show. All those shows were cool and entertaining. But at the end of the day, maybe they were writing some of the content, but they weren’t editing it. They weren’t funding it. They weren’t doing any of that.
“That’s what I was doing, and I think the fans saw that by how bad the video quality was, the editing quality was. But it was the charm of the show. Listen, the social media and using social media, it was gonna happen eventually. I was definitely one of the first people to get on board. But it’s not like I’m saying ‘If I didn’t start tweeting, that there would be no Twitter in wrestling.’ Of course not. It was coming. I was just ahead of the curve because in my real life, I was using all this social media as Matt Cardona, the real-life human.
“So I started using it as Zack Ryder the wrestling and kind of blurring the lines with Matt Cardona the human and Zack Ryder the wrestler. Through the YouTube show, I was able to do goofy stuff or show people my Star Wars fandom, for example, which you don’t really see if I’m losing in a minute and a half on Monday Night RAW with no entrance. I was able to show my love of action figures, stuff like that.”
Now, Cardona says people still ask him how they can stand out. He says social media is free, but it’s free for everyone and you just have to find the right path for yourself to stand out.
“It is free advertisement. But the double-edged sword is, it’s free for everybody. So how are you gonna stand out? I don’t know how you’re gonna stand out. You gotta figure that out. But you have all these tools. Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, you have all these tools that are free, and then eventually they’ll pay you. So you just gotta figure out your path and a way to get yourself over because it’s all about getting yourself over.”
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