Matt Cardona says he and Brian Myers could have potentially had a different WrestleMania moment in 2019.
Heading into the show, Cardona and Myers, then known as Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins, weren’t getting used prominently by WWE. But they shocked the world when they beat The Revival (Scott Dawso and Dash Wilder) to win the RAW Tag Team Championship. With the victory, Hawkins snapped his 269-match losing streak.
In an interview with Alistair McGeorge of Metro, Cardona recalled how he came up with a pitch to end Hawkins’ losing streak at WrestleMania 35. He described how the idea centered around Hawkins eliminating him from the Andre the Giant Battle Royal to win the match in their hometown. He noted that Vince McMahon, the WWE Chairman at the time, didn’t like the idea.
“WrestleMania was about to be in New York and New Jersey, one hometown,” Cardona said. “We had pitched that we would be the two final guys in the Andre The Giant Battle Royal and I would sacrifice myself. Brian would clothesline me out, and he would get his big moment at WrestleMania, break the streak, win the trophy. Vince – he didn’t like it, which is fine.”
Cardona then pointed out that he and Hawkins won the RAW Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 35, and he believes they might have gotten the opportunity because they approached McMahon with the aforementioned pitch.
“Two weeks later, we win the tag team titles at WrestleMania! I believe because we went into his office and he’s like, “Oh these guys, they live here!” I don’t know that for a fact, because we were just getting the Andre The Giant Battle Royale, and all of a sudden we’re in this tag team title match.
“We had no program with The Revival at the time, they were doing something for months with Bobby Roode and Chad Gable. Then all of a sudden, we’re in this match and we win the belts! I think that’s because we went and talked to Vince. You never know what’s gonna happen.”
Cardona recently commented on missing certain elements of WWE. Click here to see what he had to say.
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