Matt Cardona Comments On Fan Reaction To GCW World Title Win
Cardona defeating Nick Gage was one of the upsets of the year
It was one of the sights of the month; a blood spattered Matt Cardona holding aloft his newly won GCW World Championship, surrounded by broken light tubes and glass, as the GCW Homecoming crowd utterly pelted him with beer bottles, cans, and whatever else they could throw at him.
Cardona did what no-one expected in defeating the cult-hero Nick Gage, and now the GCW World Champion has spoken about his experience on Busted Open Radio.
“I’ll be honest, there was some fear,” said Cardona “Walking through that curtain, you can watch the replay on FITE, I can’t even get through the curtain. There are fans just in my face. Luckily, GCW had some security for me because I think someone would have taken me out, or tried to. It was impossible for me to get to the ring. Finally, I get there, and you can just feel the genuine hate, and not like, ‘Who’s the bad guy we’re supposed to boo?’ It was hate. The people wanted me to die there. I was getting tweets that the people wanted me to die. They wanted Nick to kill Chelsea. There were human beings typing this on their phone or their computer. What the hell is wrong with these people? Then when I won, they were just throwing bottles, full bottles. Someone threw a f****** pizza cutter. I tried to enjoy it, but I was genuinely concerned, like, this isn’t stopping. This isn’t NWO over the top and I’m going to stand there and smile. I didn’t know what was going to be thrown. I had no ideas, but I was in there for as long as I could. I tried to get the money shot with the title, and then the GCW security were like, ‘Yo, we got to go. We have to go out the front. Run out the front.’ They brought me out, and fans were still chasing me out through the Showboat Casino. It was wild.“
Despite the gruesome nature of the match, and the hostile reaction afterwards, Cardona insists he is proud of the whole affair:
“I’m very proud of it. Did I want to get injured by fans? Absolutely not. I wanted people to enjoy the show. That’s why I put my body on the line. I talked a big game. I couldn’t just go in there. I had to deliver, and I feel like I did. A part of me wanted to gain some respect from that audience, but they did not care. When there’s a pizza cutter thrown at you, that’s hate.
“This deathmatch style is not for me. It’s not my style. It’s not my style, at all. I’m not a fan of it at all, but I respect that there are people who like it. Who am I to say what’s right and wrong in wrestling? I can’t say that. I always had some respect for Nick. The guy almost died and wanted to keep going in one of his death matches. But after being in the ring with him, and seeing the punishment that he takes, not only the punishment he takes in the ring, but just the love the fans have for him and he has back. My entrance was wild because the people wanted to kill me. His entrance was wild because the people loved him and wanted to touch him. It was something I never experienced before. You would have thought that they were trying to kill him, but they just wanted to bring their king to the ring. I respect the hell out of him. He is one, tough, S.O.B., but it just wasn’t his night.”
As to where this moment ranks in Cardona’s career?
“Wearing that Intercontinental title with my dad coming to the ring, that’s number 1,” he said “If this isn’t number 2 or 3, I don’t know what would be. I had a kick-ass deathmatch against this king, I beat him, and then the place legitimately riots. I mean, you can’t really top that. It’s an unbelievable feeling.”
H/T: WrestlingNews.co
