Matt Cardona became an indie wrestling sensation after his WWE release in 2020 and has since held countless prestigious titles. At present, he remains the JCW Lunacy World Heavyweight Champion and QPW Middle East Champion, although it seems those reigns are about to end.
This is because, after making his full-time WWE return during this week’s episode of SmackDown, he announced ahead of ACW’s show on Saturday night that he was vacating the ACW Championship after inking his deal with WWE. This suggests he won’t be fulfilling any more indie dates, which, while disappointing for those promotions and their fans, is part of the business and almost certainly outside his control.
In professional wrestling, when wrestlers join WWE, they typically lose or vacate their titles from other promotions to avoid cross-promotional conflicts and allow proper storyline closure. However, given how infrequently some of the promotions Cardona has been working on run shows, it was unlikely to be an option. Still, exceptions have been made in the past, such as when Karl Anderson re-signed with WWE while holding the NEVER Openweight Championship, and WWE management allowed him to return to New Japan to wrestle two matches, dropping the belt to Tama Tonga in one of them at Wrestle Kingdom 17.
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