Matt Cardona may have hit a turning point in his WWE run after dropping a match to Gunther on last Friday’s SmackDown in Boston.
The bout came together unexpectedly. Gunther interrupted the segment between Nick Aldis and Chelsea Green at the top of the show and started getting in the face of the current Interim WWE Women’s Champion.
Cardona came out to stand up for his wife, and the confrontation led to a match. Gunther picked up the win after hitting multiple Powerbombs and locking in a Boston Crab that forced Cardona to tap.
Despite the tough loss, Cardona showed a completely different mentality after the show. In a post on his official X account, he thanked the Austrian:
“Thank you @Gunther_AUT for waking me up!”
The brief message was paired with a video where Cardona acknowledged he needed to lose like that. The former Zack Ryder made it clear he didn’t come back to WWE just to be another name on the roster.
Cardona went as far as naming the WWE Championship as his target, though that’s nothing new. Back in June, he had already declared his intention to become WWE Champion and said he wanted to win the title by beating Cody Rhodes.
Cardona has been stuck in a losing skid since returning to WWE, but he’s consistently maintained that he has no intention of giving up on succeeding in the company.