{"id":379855,"date":"2025-11-15T03:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T03:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/379855\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T03:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T03:58:12","slug":"zack-ryder-returns-to-wwe-as-the-mystery-man-in-john-cenas-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/379855\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Ryder returns to WWE as the mystery man in John Cena\u2019s tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">LA Knight was set to face a mystery man tonight (Nov. 14) on SmackDown in the opening round of The Last Time Is Now tournament. The big reveal turned out to be the surprise return of Zack Ryder (aka Indy God Matt Cardona), who was back for his first match on the WWE main roster in over five years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Woo woo woo, you know it!<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Long Island Iced Z\u2019s inclusion in the tournament makes sense given that he was buried in a WWE storyline with Cena in 2012 during the infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cagesideseats.com\/wwe\/2013\/1\/18\/3891526\/zack-ryders-hoeski-video-is-the-most-ridiculous-thing-youll-see-today\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hoeski<\/a> angle; he would presumably love to be the man to retire John for good next month. But Zack was just here for a cameo appearance rather than to make a serious run in the tournament. Knight withstood the Rough Ryder and put Zack away with the BFT for the three count.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The megastar now joins Jey Uso, Rusev, and Sheamus in the second round of the tournament, which still doesn\u2019t have a bracket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">What did you think of Zack Ryder\u2019s surprise return to WWE? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Catch up on all the results from SmackDown in our live blog right <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cagesideseats.com\/wwe\/396717\/wwe-smackdown-results-live-blog-nov-14-2025-last-time-is-now-tournament\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LA Knight was set to face a mystery man tonight (Nov. 14) on SmackDown in the opening round&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":379856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,67,132,68,188,2202],"class_list":{"0":"post-379855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wwe","13":"tag-wwe-smackdown"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115551712629037550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}