Matthew Brett Cardona (born May 14, 1985) is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under his real name. He previously performed in WWE from 2006 to 2020 under the ring name Zack Ryder, and is also known for his tenures in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) and the independent circuit.
Cardona debuted in professional wrestling in 2004, teaming with Brian Myers on the independent circuit. Both men were signed by WWE the following year, making their main roster debuts in 2007. After the team split in 2009, he made appearances on WWE's ECW brand until 2010, following which he was featured sparingly on television. In 2011, he launched a YouTube web series in which he proclaimed himself WWE's "Internet Champion"; this, along with his creative use of social media, helped him establish a substantial cult following. Over the course of his time with WWE, Cardona held the Intercontinental, United States, and (Raw) Tag Team Championships (the latter with Hawkins on two occasions).
After being released by WWE in April 2020, Cardona has made appearances in major wrestling promotions including All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Impact Wrestling, and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), as well as throughout the American independent circuit, most notably in Game Changer Wrestling (GCW). He has since won various championships including the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship, Impact Digital Media Championship, and GCW World Championship. During this time he received critical praise, being named Indie Wrestler of the Year in 2022 and in 2023 by Pro Wrestling Illustrated. He returned to WWE in October 2025 and re-signed with the promotion in January 2026.
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Early life
Matthew Brett Cardona was born in Merrick, New York, on May 14, 1985 with Italian ancestry. While in high school, he overcame synovial sarcoma, which had started in his foot and spread to his lungs. He was forced to miss a year of school.
Professional wrestling career
New York Wrestling Connection (2004–2006)
Cardona was trained by Mikey Whipwreck. He debuted with New York Wrestling Connection (NYWC) in 2004, using the name Brett Matthews. He began regularly teaming with Brian Myers and the duo of Myers and Matthews went on to defeat the NYWC Tag Team Champions Dickie Rodz and Mason Raige by disqualification, for which titles do not change hands. On the next event on June 4, they won a rematch decisively to become the NYWC Tag Team Champions. Later that month, they were attacked by The Dead Presidents (Lo Lincoln and Boog Washington) to set up a feud where they eventually lost their titles against them on August 27. On September 23, they were entered into a three-way match with then champions, but Team Tremendous (Dan Barry and Ken Scampi) ended up with the championship. After continuing to win matches, they re-earned a match against Team Tremendous and won the titles for the second time on January 25, 2006. They held the championship until they faced the B.S. Xpress (Tony Burma and Mike Spinelli), who defeated them for the titles on March 26.
WWE (2005–2020)
Cardona's first WWE appearance was on April 21, 2005, on SmackDown!, where he lost to Matt Morgan. On February 24, 2006, Cardona signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). In Deep South Wrestling (DSW), he was renamed Brett Major while Myers was renamed Brian Major. On October 12, they won the DSW Tag Team Championship from The Untouchables (Deuce Shade and Dice Domino) and held them until the end of November, losing them to Urban Assault (Eric Pérez and Sonny Siaki). After the titles were vacated in the following year, they became two-time champions defeating the new team of Sonny Siaki and Afa Jr (The Samoan Swat Team) and The Blue Bloods (William Regal and Dave Taylor). Later in 2007 they moved to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) and won the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship once, reigning from June 15 to 29.
In March 2015, Devon Nicholson described an incident from 2006 that Bill DeMott was involved with while he was head trainer for the WWE's DSW developmental territory. Nicholson described an incident where Drew Hankinson was completely naked in the ring for a long period of time and gave naked stink faces to Cardona and Melissa Coates while DeMott held jelly donuts over their faces. The wrestlers agreed to do this (with the other talent encouraging them) to get out of regular training for that day. DeMott refuted the notion that it was his idea, stating that the other trainees came up with because they wanted to skip the session.
The team was moved to the main roster in May 2007. They worked on WWE's ECW brand, winning only their first match until they were drafted to SmackDown! in June. On November 9 they won a battle royal to receive a WWE Tag Team Championship match, but didn't win.
At Armageddon, the duo dressed up like Edge and interfered in the World Heavyweight Championship match, replacing Edge at several points along the match to help him win the title and thus turning heel for the first time in their WWE career. On December 21, the Major Brothers were revealed as an acquaintance to Edge and his lover, SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero. The Major Brothers were repackaged and renamed, with Cardona and Myers being renamed Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins respectively. Occasionally referred to as the Rated-R Entourage by commentators Michael Cole and John "Bradshaw" Layfield, the group allied with Guerrero's nephew, Chavo Guerrero and his enforcer Bam Neely as the group La Familia, which dominated SmackDown's storyline through 2008. Ryder and Hawkins interfered in Edge's match at WrestleMania XXIV against The Undertaker, but Undertaker eventually won the match.
All Elite Wrestling / Ring of Honor (2020, 2024)
After leaving WWE, Cardona began to work with All Elite Wrestling (AEW) on a limited appearance deal under his real name. He made his debut on the July 29, 2020 episode of Dynamite, saving Cody from an attack by Alex Reynolds and John Silver of The Dark Order. He made his in-ring debut on the August 5 episode of Dynamite, teaming with Cody to defeat Reynolds and Silver. At the All Out pay-per-view on September 5, he teamed with Dustin Rhodes, Q. T. Marshall and Scorpio Sky in an eight-man tag team match to defeat Mr. Brodie Lee, Colt Cabana, Evil Uno and Stu Grayson of The Dark Order, which was his last match with the promotion until 2024, as it was reported he was no longer under contract with AEW.
On the March 30, 2024 episode of AEW Collision, Cardona returned to AEW, accepting Adam Copeland's open challenge for the AEW TNT Championship. He was defeated in the match. On the December 5, 2024, episode of ROH Wrestling, Cardona made his Ring of Honor (ROH) debut (AEW's sister company), challenging Chris Jericho to a ROH World Championship match at Final Battle, but he was defeated by Jericho.
Impact Wrestling (2021–2023)
After leaving AEW, Cardona began to work with Impact Wrestling in a similar limited appearance deal. He made his surprise debut on January 16, 2021, at Hard To Kill, where he defeated Ace Austin by disqualification. On the January 26 episode of Impact!, Cardona teamed with Josh Alexander to defeat Austin and Madman Fulton. Soon after, Cardona would begin a feud with his former tag team partner, Brian Myers. At No Surrender, Cardona and Eddie Edwards were defeated by Myers and Hernandez, and Cardona was defeated by Myers again at Rebellion in a singles match. The feud ended at Slammiversary, where Cardona teamed up with his real-life fiancée, Chelsea Green to defeat Myers and Tenille Dashwood. At Bound for Glory, Cardona competed in the Call Your Shot Gauntlet match, where he would be the runner-up in the match after being lastly eliminated by Moose. At Turning Point, Cardona lost to W. Morrissey with the help of Moose. On the December 2 episode of Impact!, Cardona pinned Moose in a tag team match, thus earning him an Impact World Championship match at Hard To Kill. At the event, on January 8, 2022, Cardona was unsuccessful in capturing the title in a three-way match also involving Morrissey.
On the February 3 episode of Impact!, Cardona defeated Jordynne Grace to win the Impact Digital Media Championship after hitting her with a steel chair, thus turning heel. At No Surrender, he defeated Grace by disqualification after she delivered to him a low blow. On the February 24 episode of Impact!, Cardona defeated Grace for the title again in a Dotcombat match. On the April 15 episode of Impact!, Myers reunited with Cardona and attacked W. Morrissey during an in-ring promo, with the help of Chelsea Green. At the end of the segment, they smashed Morrisey through a table. Later in the show, Green gave Mickie James a cheap shot and then knocked her down with Myers and Cardona's help. The following week, Cardona retained his title against the returning James Maritato. He would lose the title against Rich Swann during an independent event. On October 7 at Bound for Glory, Cardona made his return by competing in the Call Your Shot Gauntlet, eliminating Gisele Shaw and Taylor Wilde before being eliminated by Bhupinder Gujjar.
On May 14, 2023, Cardona confirmed he was officially done with Impact Wrestling. However, Cardona returned to Impact Wrestling on October 21, at Bound for Glory as a participant in the 20-person Intergender Call Your Shot Gauntlet match, eliminating Jake Something, Sonny Kiss, Frankie Kazarian, Eric Young and Brian Myers before being eliminated by Jordynne Grace.
Independent circuit (2021–2025)
Between 2021 and 2025, Cardona worked on several independent promotions, most notably Game Changer Wrestling. During these years, his work on the independent promotions was higly praised, being known as the Indy God. Cardona won the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Indie Wrestler of the Year award in 2022 and 2023 and was named by Fightful as the Male Independent Wrestler of the Year in 2022.
Cardona made his debut with GCW on June 6, 2021, at Zombie Walk, attacking Nick Gage. Cardona challenged Gage for the title at night one of GCW Homecoming in a deathmatch, winning the GCW World Championship. In GCW, he had a gimmick that tried to "fix" GCW, bringing sports entertainment elements such as dressing like Vince McMahon when he was ECW Champion, referring to the fans as GCW Universe and introducing a new title design with a spinner version of the belt. He would lose the championship to Jon Moxley on September 4, 2021, at The Art of War Games. In 2026, Cardona credited his work with GCW as the center of his success as the Indy God and the reason WWE rehired him in 2026. As part of the gimmick, he also defeated former ECW wrestler Rhino for the ECW World Television Championship.
Cardona also worked with the National Wrestling Alliance, winning the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship from Trevor Murdoch at NWA PowerrrTrip. He held the title for X days, but vacated the belt at Alwayz Ready due to an injury. He tried to regain the title at Hard Times 3 and Nuff Said, but didn't win any of the matches.
He also worked for Major League Wrestling, wrestling for the MLW World Heavyweight Championship at One Shot, but was defeated by Alex Kane. He also appeared with Japanese promotion DDT Pro-Wrestling, defeating Tetsuya Endo for the DDT Universal Championship at Wrestle Peter Pan 2023.
Return to TNA (2024–2025)
On the March 28, 2024 of TNA Impact, Cardona along with Steph De Lander returned to TNA in a 8-4-1 match. On the April 11 episode of TNA Impact, he and De Lander made a second appearance smashing Jordynne Grace through a table. Following this, Cardona would be sidelined for months, due to suffering a torn pectoral muscle.
On the August 1 episode of TNA Impact, Cardona returned and attacked PCO at his wedding with Steph De Lander. Cardona would begin a feud with PCO, as he had considered De Lander to be his "property", due to a contract agreement that De Lander had signed for her visa.
This would lead to a tag team match scheduled for Victory Road between the team of Cardona and De Lander and the team of PCO and Rhino. However, the match did not happen, as De Lander announced that she had suffered a neck injury before the match was supposed to begin. Cardona would attack Rhino, after the segment.
Cardona would then challenge PCO to a Monster's Ball match for the TNA Digital Media and International Heavyweight Championships at Bound for Glory. At the event, Cardona would lose the match.
On the January 23, 2025 episode of TNA Impact, Cardona would return to challenge Joe Hendry for the TNA World Championship in a losing effort. On October 12 at Bound for Glory, Cardona competed in the Call Your Shot Gauntlet, eliminating Zack Clayton, Eric Young and Mance Warner, who eliminated him afterwards. On December 5 at Final Resolution, Cardona defeated Warner in a Street Fight.
Return to WWE (2025–present)
Cardona made his return to WWE as part of the TNA invasion storyline with the NXT brand as Matt Cardona, wrestling his first match in five years on the October 14, 2025, episode of NXT, losing to Josh Briggs. He also participated in the "Last Time is Now" tournament to determine John Cena's final opponent as Zack Ryder, losing on the November 14 episode of SmackDown against LA Knight. On the January 2, 2026 episode of SmackDown, Cardona signed with WWE as part of the SmackDown roster, working as Matt Cardona where he defeated Kit Wilson. At the Royal Rumble on January 31, Cardona entered the match at #6 being eliminated by Oba Femi in less than a minute.
Professional wrestling style, persona, and reception
Throughout his 15-year tenure with WWE, Cardona had several gimmicks as Zack Ryder, from his debut in 2007 as an Edgehead for Edge's La Familia to a social media influencer dubbed "Long Island Iced Z" that kickstarted the "Ryder Revolution" in 2011. During this period he would use a multitude of different signature and finishing moves such as a lifting inverted DDT, an inverted overdrive dubbed the Zack Attack, and currently a jumping leg lariat dubbed the Rough Ryder, now dubbed Radio Silence.
After his departure from WWE in 2020, Cardona reinvented himself as a "super-fan of all things wrestling" who paid tribute to WWE in order to rile up fans on the independent circuit. Cardona would dress up in Vince McMahon's ECW World Heavyweight Champion outfit to one of his GCW World Championship defenses, introduced a new "spinner belt" design for the championship to parody the WWE Championship spinner belt, and took aspects of "extreme icons" including Mick Foley and The Sandman and "mutated them in his own narcissistic image."
In 2022, Cardona had taken on a "belt collector" gimmick, traveling around to various independent promotions, winning their top championships, and holding them alongside his Impact Digital Media, NWA World's Heavyweight, and self-promoted Internet Championships, holding as many as seven titles representing five different promotions at one point in April 2022, while at the end of September 2023, he held nine different belts.
Legacy
Cardona is known for being one of the first wrestlers to become popular thanks to his online presence. British wrestler Drake Maverick claimed that, without him "your Twitter, Instagram, YouTube promo wouldn't exist."
Other media
Cardona as Zack Ryder started a YouTube web series called Z! True Long Island Story in February 2011. The web series was a collection of short comments from Ryder, containing comedic allusions to wrestling and pop culture; it also featured cameos from his friends, family, as well as fellow WWE colleagues. The show's theme song "Just Take Care, Spike Your Hair (The Broski of the Week Song)" was written specifically about Ryder by The Luke & Duane Show. In April 2011, Ryder proclaimed himself WWE "Internet Champion" complete with a children's replica belt covered in stickers, as it was unsanctioned by WWE. In July 2011, Ryder defended his Internet Championship at a house show in Australia, against Primo. On an episode of Z! True Long Island Story, Dolph Ziggler challenged Ryder to an Internet title match at WrestleMania 29 which Ryder accepted. Ryder soon replaced the toy belt with a $1,500 custom-made belt. The title belt's center plate features an engraved illustration of Ryder's head and spiked hair while the side plates display his logo and those of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook but these social media logos were not featured in WWE video games due to copyright issues.
On episode 50 of Z! True Long Island Story, Ryder announced the show would be part of WWE's official YouTube channel. Z! True Long Island Story ended on January 11, 2013, which was the show's 100th episode. The show was "ended" by Dolph Ziggler, who attacked Ryder with his Money in the Bank briefcase, setting up a dream sequence featuring cameos from people who had previously appeared on the show while Ryder climbed a staircase to "heaven". When Ryder woke up, he thought that the Ryder Revolution was all a dream until being told by his family and friends that it all happened. Overall, the series ran 50 episodes on Zack Ryder's YouTube channel and 50 episodes on WWE's official YouTube channel. Ryder later said that he regretted allowing WWE to move his show to their YouTube channel and that WWE had removed content from his videos. On March 10, 2014, Ryder uploaded the first episode of his new series, Zack Ryder's Last ReZort, to his own YouTube channel. In this video, Ryder (without his traditional glasses and headband) expressed his frustration regarding his dramatic plunge to the bottom of the roster, proclaiming his desire to have "lightning strike twice" and work his way back up the cards. In October 2014, Ryder and Dolph Ziggler "took over" an episode of WWE's YouTube series, The JBL (Not Cole) Show for its 99th episode, making it in turn the 101st episode of Ryder's show, Z! True Long Island Story.
In July 2011, Ryder was featured in Sports Illustrated's list of the 100 most influential Twitter users in sports. On January 16, 2013, Ryder released a music video entitled "Hoeski". The song amassed over 100,000 views in four days and was also posted on WWE's official YouTube channel. "Hoeski" peaked at No. 92 on the iTunes Pop Music chart on February 5, 2013.
Discography
Singles
Personal life
Cardona resides in Orlando, Florida. He began dating Canadian professional wrestler Chelsea Green in January 2017, and they were engaged on April 4, 2019. They were married on December 31, 2021, in Las Vegas.
Cardona is an avid fan of Ghostbusters. He has periodically donned Ghostbusters themed ring gear during matches, and discussed his love of the franchise in the 2016 documentary Ghostheads.
Championships and accomplishments
Awesome Championship Wrestling
ACW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Arizona Wrestling Federation
AWF Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Absolute Intense Wrestling
AIW Absolute Championship (2 times)
AIW Intense Championship (1 time)
All Star Wrestling
ASW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Chris Jericho's Rock 'N' Wrestling Rager at Sea
Jericho Cruise Oceanic Championship (1 time)
Jericho Cruise Oceanic Title Tournament (2023)
Deep South Wrestling
DSW Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brian Majors
DDT Pro-Wrestling
DDT Universal Championship (1 time)
Empire State Wrestling
ESW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Fightful Select
Male Independent Wrestler of the Year (2022)
F1RST Wrestling