Matt Cardona Opens Up About Career Advice He Got From AEW's Chris Jericho

Matt Cardona wrestled Chris Jericho for the ROH World Championship last December, which was the first match they had together since 2016, a point when they were still WWE stars. After working with him in both AEW and WWE, Cardona recently outlined on his YouTube channel two pieces of advice that Jericho gave him which he remembered for the rest of his career.

"Chris, whether he knows it or not, he helped me out so many times in my career." Cardona said. "I was doing the one-legged tights for the 'Woo, Woo, Woo' Zack Ryder ... I wanted to stand out and it worked. It really did. But one day, Chris pulled me aside — and I'm paraphrasing — basically said, like, 'You're too good to be doing this. It worked. But you gotta wear trunks to be taken more seriously.'" The next week, Cardona switched to trunks on Jericho's advice and hasn't gone back to tights since. He then reflected on his AEW debut, where "The Neuve" told him to completely remove all aspects of Zack Ryder.

"I had my AEW debut. I knew, 'Okay, Zack Ryder is dead. He's dead. It's gonna be Matt Cardona,' right? But I thought, 'Okay, I can still, throw up the LI (hand gesture) right? I did that ... Chris pulls me aside, he's not mad at me, but he says, 'You gotta get rid of that s**t. Everything about Zack Ryder has to die.'" Cardona admitted that Jericho was right, despite having released a t-shirt that said "Strong Island, doing the LI." "The Indy God" expressed how Jericho inspired him by always knowing how to reinvent himself, and now feels he's become a good example of someone who knows how to evolve.