Matt Cardona still has one major goal in mind when he returns from injury — becoming WWE Champion.
Cardona recently revealed that he suffered a torn triceps while competing in a non-televised match. The injury comes at a particularly frustrating time for the 41-year-old, who feels he was beginning to find some momentum after spending much of his first seven months back in WWE searching for his place on the roster.
During a video posted to Instagram, Cardona compared the setback to the injury he suffered during his run on the independent scene.
“There is no good time to get injured. When I got injured on the indies, I was ‘The Indy God,’ right? I had all these titles, I was killing it. Getting hurt was a momentum killer, a buzz killer, and I was trying so hard to get back to WWE, so that sucked when I got hurt then. But now, I think it sucks even more because let’s be honest, these past seven months, I haven’t been doing much, and I’ve been optimistic that something is gonna change and it did a couple weeks ago with the GUNTHER opportunity…” Cardona said.
Cardona acknowledged that earning a prominent position in WWE was always going to be difficult given the depth of the company’s roster. The injury now forces him back to the sidelines while he was still trying to establish what this version of Matt Cardona would look like in WWE.
“There’s no dead weight on the roster so I knew it would be an uphill battle. But yeah, it just sucks getting hurt now when I’m still figuring out who Matt Cardona is in WWE… I’m not getting any younger, right?” Cardona continued. “I’m 41, which, you know, I don’t think is that old. I feel like I’m in the best shape of my career besides this injury. The two World Champions are my age or older.”
While Cardona remains confident in what he can do once he gets back in the ring, he also admitted that losing several months at this stage of his career is significant.
“But I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning. So, five months, six months, three months off, at this point in my career, that’s a long f*cking time. So it is certainly not a good time to get injured,” Cardona said.
Despite the setback, Cardona made it clear that the injury hasn’t changed his ambitions. He vowed to beat the recovery timetable given to him and return with his sights set on reaching the top of WWE.
“I worked too damn hard to come back to have this injury ruin it, so, I’ll be back, faster than the surgeon said, and I’m coming back to be the WWE Champion or I’m gonna die trying.”
