GCW President Brett Lauderdale recently spoke with Wrestling Inc. Daily about a wide range of topics, most notably the indie federations use of superstar Matt Cardona, with Lauderdale stating that he’s not surprised that Cardona was able to make his run such a success. Highlights, including his thoughts of the now famous Cardona vs. Nick Gage feud, can be found below.
Says he was not surprised that Matt Cardona’s run with GCW has been super successful:
“A ‘guest star’, ugh, that makes me cringe. I am not surprised because Matt Cardona is, in this wrestling world, a superstar, to borrow the term from the WWE, but he is. Outside of this independent wrestling bubble, Matt Cardona is very well known. He was on WWE television for over a decade, and he’s done some big things. And aside from his WWE life, he has that entire podcast and wrestling action figure fanbase as well. He’s big in multiple bubbles that are not our bubble, so bringing him in, it’s not surprising to me that putting all of those worlds together was a big deal. And he’s a good performer and he’s a smart performer. So no, I’m not surprised that it’s been successful, and I’m glad that we’ve been able to work together to make it as big a deal as it’s been.”
On Cardona beating Nick Gage and how it got a huge reaction from the GCW crowd:
“Well, in GCW, Nick Gage is king, he’s God, he’s all of those things, and Nick Gage fans, it’s not a fandom, it’s a lifestyle. When you’re MDK, you’re MDK all f**king day. We don’t really take kindly to outsiders, especially guys like Matt Cardona coming in, and not just beating Nick but beating him for the GCW title. That’s a pretty big deal. I don’t think for the MDK folks, that’s something we celebrate.”
Says he understands why fans threw objects after the match, but doesn’t encourage sharp objects being thrown:
“Surely we don’t want to see anybody get hurt, but it was a very authentic reaction. And I think, as far as I’m concerned, I almost look at that reaction as the ultimate show of respect. Maybe I’m crazy here, but you’re saying throwing pizza cutters. I think there was maybe one. We’re talking about plastic water bottles and the such. These are things that, I guess, if you were to get hit right in the face, it would probably hurt, but otherwise, it’s not going to do a lot of damage. But to get people to care enough to do that and then for people to care enough to do that, it says something about the performer and the performance. There’s a lot of ways people can react when something they ‘don’t like’ happens, but to get them invested enough to react in that way, like I said, I think it’s almost the ultimate show of respect. Throwing sharp objects is not encouraged, but other than that, I think we kind of trust our fans to react authentically with some common sense involved.”