UltiBro Dragon: Can Matt Cardona Break the All-Time Record of Ultimo Dragon?

^{Research Note: Sources & Citations are linked in the bolded text below.}

At the Premier Streaming Network Wrestling Showcase on September 9th, 2023, the “Indy God” Matt Cardona defeated Jacob Fatu and Charles Mason to both retain his HOG World Heavyweight Championship and become the inaugural Premier Men’s World Championship.

^{Belt Collecters: Matt Cardona and Steph De Lander are the inaugural PSN Men’s and Women’s Champions.}

This win not only makes Cardona the face of the Freddie Prinze Jr. founded Premier Streaming Network, but it also means he now holds nine championship titles simultaneously. On top of his PSN and House of Glory Wrestling gold, Cardona is presently the DDT Universal Champion, WSW World Heavyweight Champion, SCX Champion, Wrestling Showcase Champion, Xcite International Champion, Jericho Cruise Oceanic Champion and, of course, the Internet Champion (a championship I’m presently writing a deep-dive article on).

Nine championships puts Cardona at the edge of meeting a record set almost three decades prior by Ultimo Dragon, who held ten championships simultaneously between October 1996 and January 1997.

^{The legendary Ultimo Dragon holds the professional wrestling record of ten simultaneous title reigns.}

Ultimo Dragon’s path to setting this double-digit record took shape when, while already nearly two-years deep into a reign with the NWA World Middle-Weight Championship, he defeated The Great Sasuke for the J-Crown Octuple Unified Championship. The J-Crown itself was comprised of eight individual titles: the British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Championship, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship, the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship, the WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship, WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship, and lastly, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship.

People sometimes forget that Ultimo Dragon first won his tenth title on October 28th, 1996, when he teamed with Nobutaka Araya and Genichiro Tenryu to wrest the WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Championships from Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow, Hiromichi Fuyuki and Yoji Anjo. However, the titles were immediately deactivated by Wrestle Association-R and it wasn’t until the WCW Starrcade 1997 PPV on December 29th that Ultimo Dragon would begin his more famous run. Here at World Championship Wrestling’s marquee event, Ultimo Dragon defeated Dean Malenko in a Winner Take All match to earn the WCW Cruiserweight Championship, allowing him to make history as the first (and as yet last) wrestler to hold ten active singles championships at one time.

Ultimo Dragon’s run with two armfuls gold came to an end just days later on January 4th, 1997, when Jushin Thunder Liger bested him to claim the J-Crown at NJPW Wrestling World In Tokyo Dome. Nonetheless, his legacy was secured, the images of him from this period are amongst the most iconic in wrestling history, and his record has stood ever since.

In the decades that followed, we’ve seen numerous talented wrestlers capture multiple titles on weekly wrestling TV. Chants of “Becky Two Belts!” rang out in April 2019, Kenny Omega took ownership of the “belt collector” monicker as the AEW World Champion, AAA Mega Champion and Impact World Champion in 2021 and The Bloodline proved capable of dominating multiple WWE brands at once in 2022 and 2023. On the independents, subjects of past Ecstasy of Gold articles have also accomplished impressive feats, with Drew Galloway, Steve Corino, Andy Roberts, Leyton Buzzard, AC Mack and Brian Myers all holding multiple championships simultaneously. But none have come as close to Ultimo Dragon’s count of ten as “the Indy God” now is.

With nine titles as Cardona’s current best, he has been absorbing gold ever since his in-ring debut for Game Changer Wrestling. In that unforgettable moment, he defeated Nick Gage for the GCW World Championship, and endured a hail of bottles and cans from a sea disgusted hardcore fans. Adopting the “the Death Match King” monicker, he tore through promotions big and small to hold titles like the NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship, the Impact Wrestling Digital Media Championship and the AIW Absolute Championship.

When injury took some away, he simply won more. Ever unpredictable, he scored gold in Japan, Australia and even out at sea, with reigns which would be both long (he spent 434 days as ASW Heavyweight Championship) and short (he held the ESW Heavyweight Championship for a matter of minutes). Vying for titles in Absolute Intense Wrestling forced the three-time Slammy Award winner to overcome the unfamiliar and the terrifying, while others, like the NYWC Heavyweight Championship were a homecoming for the man formerly known as Brett Matthews.

When Cardona was released from WWE in 2020, he had already proven himself capable of winning titles. He’d done that in places as far apart as Premier Wrestling Federation: New Jersey, Ohio Valley Wrestling and WWE WrestleMania. Perhaps more importantly, he had already proven through social media, Z! True Long Island Story and “The Ryder Revolution” that he could connect with the fans whether he was on TV or not.

Nonetheless, few could have predicted what Cardona would accomplish as an independent wrestler. Now, in 2023, he has been the World Heavyweight Champion, he has been the Pro Wrestling Illustrated “Indie Wrestler of the Year” and aided by Chelsea Green, Brian Myers, “Smart” Mark Sterling and Steph De Lander, he’s beaten everyone from Josh Alexander and Jacob Fatu to Brian Cage and Tetsuya Endo to win and retain his plethora of belts.

Outside of the tightly regulated WWE bubble, he’s able to realise his ideas in a sink or swim environment. One example is his Internet Championship, something which WWE had wanted little to do with, which has now been contested on PPV (and even the WWE Network) for top promotions in the United States and the United Kingdom. He no longer has to wait until creative has something for him.

Certainly Cardona has not been competing, as Ultimo Dragon did, for New Japan Pro Wrestling and Michinoku Pro Wrestling titles at Starrcade and in the Tokyo Dome, but in a very different time, Cardona has accomplished something quite special, going from town to town and country to country, returning more often than not, with another promotion’s championship.

To meet Ultimo Dragon’s record of ten titles, he needs just one more championship, while setting a new record of eleven would require a further two. Cardona recently implored promoters to stop putting their titles on him, but he’s a collector at heart and when that “fomo” hits, he can never quite help himself. Over the past few months, he’s called out Alex Kane for the MLW World Heavyweight Championship, Colby Corino for the PWF Crystal Coast Oceanic Championship, Tommy Dreamer for both the Impact Digital Media Championship and RetroMania Wrestling Championship, and even Jon Moxley for the AEW International Championship. All the while, he has repeatedly asserted that he is in fact a fractional part of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions with his wife Chelsea Green. Collectors collect.

Matt Cardona has been “the Death Match King” and “the Indy God,” could he be looking to become “the UltiBro Dragon” too?

If so, his next test will be retaining his HOG World Heavyweight Championship against Homicide at HOG Fallout tonight (September 15th, 2023) in Jamaica, NY (Tickets / PPV).