After a successful five-year run as a free agent, Matt Cardona (formerly Zack Ryder) is officially back in WWE, with last Friday’s episode of “WWE SmackDown” serving as the platform for his re-debut. Despite now being back in professional wrestling’s juggernaut, Cardona attests that the significance of his preceding stint is not lost on him, especially when it comes to his work in Game Changer Wrestling. In fact, Cardona had a physical reminder of GCW right by him when he re-signed with WWE.

“There’s some things I want to close to the vest, but I will say this. When I signed my WWE contract — which now you’re not actually signing paper, it’s all on your phone — I signed it with my GCW title on my lap,” Cardona said on “The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast.” “Because if it wasn’t for GCW, I wouldn’t be the Indie God. If I wasn’t the Indie God, I wouldn’t be back in WWE. I firmly believe that. So when I got fired, I looked at that picture of me and my dad at WrestleMania and when I got rehired, I was holding that GCW Title. I’m very sentimental like that.”

Initially, Cardona’s GCW run was to stretch only three shows, with the first one seeing him lay out then-GCW World Champion Nick Gage. From there, Cardona planned to dethrone Gage in a death match, then drop the world title in his first defense. Amidst his championship death match with Gage at GCW Homecoming Weekend 2021, however, fans and Cardona himself felt electrified. In Cardona’s case, it was so much so that he continued making GCW appearances for four more years.

Cardona’s reign as GCW World Champion spanned 42 days before it came to an end at the hands of AEW star Jon Moxley at GCW The Art Of War Games in September 2021.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.