{"id":284576,"date":"2025-11-15T11:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284576\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:23:12","slug":"former-wwe-star-returns-on-smackdown-enters-last-time-is-now-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284576\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WWE Star Returns On SmackDown, Enters Last Time Is Now Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/smackdown-logo-april-26-a.jpg\" alt=\"Former WWE Star Returns On SmackDown, Enters Last Time Is Now Tournament\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    WWE<\/p>\n<p>A former WWE star returned on SmackDown to enter the John Cena \u2018Last Time is Now\u2019 tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight\u2019s episode of SmackDown saw the continuation of the \u2018Last Time is Now\u2019 tournament to determine John Cena\u2019s final WWE opponent.<\/p>\n<p>After Jey Uso knocked off The Miz in a first round match earlier in the night, LA Knight took on a mystery opponent for a spot in the quarter finals of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>With speculation swirling all week regarding who from outside of WWE could potentially step up to challenge the \u201cMegastar\u201d, the name who answered the call was none other than former United States and Intercontinental Champion Matt Cardona.<\/p>\n<p>However, unlike his return to WWE competition via NXT, Cardona made his return under the Zack Ryder name that he hasn\u2019t used since his release from the company in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Arriving complete with his signature \u2018Radio\u2019 WWE entrance theme, Ryder received a warm ovation from the fans in Albany before going toe-to-toe with Knight inside the ring.<\/p>\n<p>Despite hitting Knight with both a Broski Boot and Rough Ryder, the TNA star could not get the job done, with LA Knight later punishing Ryder with a BFT for the three count.<\/p>\n<p>Knight now joins Jey Uso, Rusev and Sheamus in the quarterfinals finals of the \u2018Last Time is Now\u2019 tournament.<\/p>\n<p>After Knight\u2019s win, Nick Aldis announced that Carmelo Hayes vs. Bronson Reed and Penta vs. Finn Balor would be the last two first round matches on next Friday\u2019s WWE SmackDown (November 21).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrestlingmasterclass.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-436300 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760823129_75_wrestling-masterclass-9-stars-webp.webp.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"778\" height=\"128\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To make sure you stay up to date with all the biggest wrestling and WrestleTalk news, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.net\/@wrestletalk.official\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">follow us on Threads by clicking this link<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>                      <a href=\"https:\/\/wrestletalk.com\/author\/jamie-toolan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/a162bb73e5e661a85e10fdfa58ddf47b07f766c9550fe9cc318ad4b23fcbe14e\"  class=\"avatar avatar-96 photo\" height=\"96\" width=\"96\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>8 hours ago by Jamie Toolan<\/p>\n<p class=\"share\">Share this article with friends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WWE A former WWE star returned on SmackDown to enter the John Cena \u2018Last Time is Now\u2019 tournament.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,8275,129274,129272,103763,13015,129273],"class_list":{"0":"post-284576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-john-cena","12":"tag-la-knight","13":"tag-last-time-is-now-tournament","14":"tag-matt-cardona","15":"tag-wwe","16":"tag-zack-ryder"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}