The Major Players were a professional wrestling tag team consisting of Brian Myers and Matt Cardona. They are best known for their time in WWE as Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, where they are former two-time WWE Raw Tag Team Champions. Myers and Cardona also wrestled for Impact Wrestling, in which they are both former Impact Digital Media Champion.
The duo made their professional wrestling debut in 2004 as a tag team in New York Wrestling Connection, wrestling as Brian Myers and Brett Matthews. After the team signed with WWE, they would become almost exclusively tag team wrestlers. They debuted in WWE's main roster in 2007 on the ECW brand as Brian and Brett Major, collectively known as The Major Brothers. Later that year, they were repackaged and renamed to Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder as associates of Edge and subsequently aligned themselves with La Familia on the SmackDown brand. Nicknamed "The Rated-R Entourage" and "The Edgeheads", Hawkins and Ryder continued their alliance with Edge until the team split in April 2009, after Ryder was drafted back to the ECW brand as part of the 2009 WWE draft. After the team's split, Hawkins and Ryder sporadically teamed together in matches, but would not officially reunite until almost 10 years later in January 2019. They would go on to capture the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania 35 in April 2019. The team's second run in WWE would end in April 2020 when both Hawkins and Ryder were simultaneously released.
Contents
History
New York Wrestling Connection (2004–2006)
The two debuted as a team in New York Wrestling Connection (NYWC) in 2004 with Matthew Cardona using the name Brett Matthews and Brian Myers using his real name. On May 21, 2005, they defeated the NYWC Tag Team Champions Dickie Rodz and Mason Raige by disqualification. At the next event on June 4, they won a rematch decisively to become Tag Team Champions. Later that month they were attacked by The Dead Presidents (Lo Lincoln and Boog Washington). Though they initially defended their titles against them in July, on August 27. On September 23 they were entered into a three-way match with the champions but Team Tremendous (Dan Barry and Ken Scampi) ended up with the belts. After continuing to win matches they re-earned a match against the champions and won the titles for the second time on January 25, 2006. They held the titles until they faced The B.S. Xpress (Tony Burma & Mike Spinelli), who defeated them for the gold on March 26.
World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE (2006-2020)
Matthews and Myers moved to Deep South Wrestling (DSW) in Georgia tweaking their ring names to Brett and Brian Majors, appearing collectively as The Majors Brothers. They lost their debut match on June 1 to Montel Vontavious Porter and Eric Pérez. They picked up their first wins on June 15 against Francisco Ciatso and Cru Jones but lost a Four Way title contendership match in July to Urban Assault (Peréz and Sonny Siaki). They continued to feud with Ciatso who changed partners frequently but never defeated The Majors Brothers. After a six match winning streak they were given a match against The Untouchables (Dice Domino and Deuce Shade) who were reigning as DSW Tag Team Champions. On 12 October, The Majors Brothers became the new champions after the match was restarted following a double pin situation.
As champions, the team became targets for aspiring champions and after their first title defence were attacked by Urban Assault. A scheduled match against them in November ended in double disqualification when The Gymini interfered in the match to attack both teams while a defence against The Gymini the following week saw another disqualification when Urban Assault made a return interference. The following week on November 30 The Majors Brothers lost their titles to Urban Assault. Their rematch went to a no contest when Urban Assault's manager G-Rilla began fighting with The Freakin' Deacon who was in The Majors' corner. After the DSW Tag Team Championship was vacated when the incumbents were released, The Majors were placed in a Three Way Tag Team match on January 19, 2007, for the titles, defeating The Samoan Fight Club (Afa Jr. and Siaki) and The Blue Bloods (William Regal and Dave Taylor) to become two-time champions. They held the championships briefly, losing them on 8 March to Team Elite (Derrick Neikirk and Mike Knox). The Majors stayed in DSW until April, exchanging victories with The Blue Bloods and teaming with Kofi Nahaje Kingston to defeat The Next Generation Hart Foundation (Harry Smith and TJ Wilson) and Shawn Osborne.
Brian Majors pre-empted the tag team's first appearance in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) on April 25's TV tapings in a 15-minute time limit draw against Jay Bradley. As a team they debuted on May 9 to pick up a win against Los Locos (Ramon and Paul) with a slightly tweaked name of The Major Brothers. After defeating Gothic Mayhem (Johnny Punch and Pat Buck) in successive matches they went on to defeat the reigning OVW Southern Tag Team Champions "The Hammer" Charles Evans and "The Ox" Justin LaRouche (future La Familia stablemate Bam Neely) twice in non-title matches, once by disqualification. These series of victories led to them facing Evans and LaRouche, joined by Dr. Thomas in a three-on-two handicap tag match on June 15 and winning the OVW Tag Team Championship.
Independent circuit (2022–2023)
At Game Changer Wrestling's Welcome to Heartbreak event in Los Angeles, Myers and Cardona reunited alongside Chelsea Green as "The Major Players," losing to X-Pac and Joey Janela in the main event.
Impact Wrestling (2022–2023)
On April 15, 2022 episode of Impact Wrestling, Myers, Cardona and Green attacked W. Morrissey during an in-ring promo, with Morrissey going through a table. Later in the show, Green gave Mickie James a cheap shot and then knocked her down with Myers and Cardona’s help.
Other media
On August 23, 2018, Cardona and Myers started The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast. In the podcast, they talk about one of their favorite hobbies, collecting wrestling figures, and other topics relating to professional wrestling and action figures.
Championships and accomplishments
Game Changer Wrestling
GCW World Championship (1 time) – Cardona
Absolute Intense Wrestling
AIW Absolute Championship (1 time) – Cardona
AIW Intense Championship (1 time) – Cardona
DDT Pro Wrestling
DDT Universal Championship (1 time) – Cardona
All Star Wrestling
ASW Heavyweight Championship (1 time) – Cardona
Deep South Wrestling
DSW Tag Team Championship (2 times)
Impact Wrestling
Impact Digital Media Championship (2 times) – Cardona (1), Myers (1)
Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – Green with Deonna Purrazzo
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship (1 time) – Cardona
New York Wrestling Connection
NYWC Heavyweight Championship (1 time) – Cardona
NYWC Tag Team Championship (2 times)
Ohio Valley Wrestling