Former WWE Superstar Matt Cardona fka Zack Ryder reveals he cancer diagnosis in an earlier period of his life

Matt Cardona fka Zack Ryder was recently interviewed by Michael Morales of Lucha Libre Online, where he talked about various aspects of his career in wrestling. The former WWE Superstar also talked about his childhood, when he was diagnosed with cancer and his battle with the disease that he was able to overcome.

Readers can see the complete interview here.

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Former WWE Superstar Matt Cardona on overcoming cancer in high school

Matt Cardona, during his interview, talked about how he overcame cancer during a dark period of his life while he was in high school. He had a tumor growing on his foot at the time.

Matt Cardona's mother saw it and upon examination, it was found to be cancerous.

Matt Cardona talked about how he did not need chemotherapy, but it was the type of cancer that could spread to the lungs. As a result, over the next year, Matt Cardona would have to regularly get x-rays done on his chest to see if it had spread.

Eventually, they found that Matt Cardona had two tumors in one lung and another in the other. As a result of this, Matt Cardona went through chemotherapy and surgeries, before he was able to beat it. Throughout that time, Cardona was telling himself that he needed to beat it so that he could be a wrestler.

Matt: “Yeah, so it's definitely a fuzzy time period in my life. I wasn't super young, I was in high school. But it's definitely a blur, but I do obviously I remember the major details. There was one summer. I had a tumor growing on my foot and it wasn't until my mom, so we were at the beach and she was like: What is that? I'm like, oh, I don't know. You know, I was just like this dumb kid. So, you know, she took me to the doctor eventually I had surgery and they did the biopsy and they knew was cancerous, but they thought they had got it enough of it and they thought they caught it early enough that I didn't need chemo or anything like that.

But they knew with that type of cancer that if it were to spread it would spread to my lungs. So every month for the next year, I would get a an x-ray on my chest to see if it went to my lungs and then the next year sure enough, there were two in one lung and one in the other, so that meant that the cancer was in my blood that I, you know, it was everywhere. So that's when I needed some more surgeries and eventually the chemo and everything like that and luckily, you know, I beat it and it's a, like cliche, but you know, the entire time all I kept saying to myself was that I need to beat this because I need to be a pro wrestler. So that's that's the only thing that kept me fighting”.

Since leaving WWE in the middle of April, Matt Cardona has worked as a part of the AEW roster over the recent weeks.

Readers can also check out Sportskeeda's interview with Matt Cardona here.