Chelsea Green on Matt Cardona’s WWE return: ‘Waited for this moment for five years’

Matt Cardona’s return to WWE SmackDown last week didn’t come out of nowhere. His wife and coworker Chelsea Green says it was the result of five years of hard work. 

In an interview with Branson Quirke and Roger Corral of TMZ Sports, Green was asked if she had been nervous for Cardona’s return. “I think I got all my nerves out of the way when he debuted at the John Cena’s last match tournament,” she replied. “So, it wasn’t as much nervousness as it was then in Albany, but it was a different feeling because we’ve now waited for this moment for five years.”

“And I know how hard I worked to get back here. He worked even harder to get back here,” she added. “He worked twice as long on the indies this time around and he really reinvented himself and that was also kind of like where a little bit of the nerves came into play.” 

Green also talked about how Cardona had changed in his time away from WWE. “How are we going to go from transitioning him out of Zack Ryder and into Matt Cardona and still paying respects to who he was and the fact that some fans will only remember Zack Ryder?” she asked. “They won’t have known his indie run. They won’t have known that he trended worldwide for a death match against Nick Gage. They won’t know that he’s now the indie god or that he’s a completely different person, that he that he never was a heel in WWE and now spent the past five years as a heel. 

“All those things are things we need to now introduce the WWE universe to. So it’s kind of a whole new bunch of nerves, but it’s just more excitement than anything.”

Green also talked about losing the WWE Women’s United States Championship to Giulia on SmackDown. “So, full disclosure, I’m lucky to have hair left after that match,” she said. “I was limping on both legs. It was definitely like a Japanese strong style match. And I’ve been to Japan. That was the hardest Japanese strong style match I’ve ever had. Even after living in Japan and wrestling [Kairi Sane] and [Iyo Sky] and [Mayu Iwatani] and all of the Stardom girls. It was really, really rough. I have to give it to Giulia because she beat my ass.”