Matt Cardona, the artist formerly known as Zack Ryder, has revealed the story of having to apologise to both The Undertaker and Triple H for being on his phone during a main event match.
As one of Edge’s Edgeheads alongside Curt Hawkins – then known as The Major Brothers – Matt Cardona first made a splash on WWE’s main roster at Armageddon 2007 when he and Hawkins dressed as ‘The Rated-R Superstar’ and aided their new leader in retaining the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Batista and The Undertaker.
However, it would be the latter that the pair would run afoul of on October 20, 2008, during the company’s tour of Mexico. During the main event bout between Triple H and Vladimir Kozlov, Cardona and Curt Hawkins were spotted on their phones by The Undertaker and forced to apologise to all involved.
Now, Matt Cardona has sat down on his True Long Island Story podcast to detail how the pair were caught and the cringe-inducing process of having to apologise to both ‘The Deadman’ and Triple H:
“One time I got in trouble by The Undertaker for being on my cell phone. For those that don’t know the story, it was overseas, we were in Mexico, I believe the main event is Vladimir Kozlov vs. Triple H this is like the last night of the tour, so how many times have I seen this match. So all the boys, all the wrestlers are sitting watching the monitor and Hawkins and I are on our phones – Hawkins claims he was just checking the time at this exact instant – The Undertaker gives The Undertaker head-snap, basically disrespectful for being on your phone blah blah blah, and he’s pretty pissed. And I’m like, ‘This is The Undertaker, locker room leader.’
Having seemingly upset the legend, both men were accosted by ‘The World’s Strongest Man’ Mark Henry who had some sage advice for the then rookies:
So afterwards, Mark Henry he pulls us aside and he’s like, ‘What up dude. You need to apologise To Undertaker.’ And I’m like, ‘You know what, you’re absolutely right’, so Hawkins and I we pull him aside, apologise and he’s super cool about it, super cool. Because we were very respectful. But he was like, ‘You really need to apologise to the guys in the main event.’ So we’re like, ‘Ok we’ll apologise to Vladimir Kozlov’ which I don’t even know if we did. Maybe we did but he doesn’t know what’s going on. But now we have to stooge ourselves off to Triple H. So Triple H, I’ll never forget this, he’s in a private dressing room and we’re like, ‘Excuse me Triple H, we were on our cell phones during your match and we’re really, really sorry, it was very disrespectful’, and he played it off as if he didn’t care. And this was at a time when we’re not the Edgeheads, we’re not with Edge anymore, this was like the beginning of the end and I’m sure that didn’t do us any favours.”
Triple H’s rivalry with the Russian began after several unprovoked attacks on ‘The Game’ on Friday Night SmackDown as he targeted Helmsley’s WWE Championship. Following a plethora of live event bouts, the Ukraine native earned himself a Triple Threat WWE Championship bout at the 2008 Survivor Series but was thwarted in his quest by Edge.
Credit for the interview: True Long Island Story Podcast