Quick Facts
Biography
Brian Myers (born April 20, 1985) is an American professional wrestler and promoter currently signed with WWE under the ring name Curt Hawkins on the Raw brand. Hawkins initially competed in WWE from 2006 to 2014, and returned to the company in 2016 after wrestling on the independent circuit.
Myers is a two-time World Tag Team Champion being a one-time WWE Tag Team Champion with Zack Ryder and one-time TNA World Tag Team Champion with Trevor Lee.
Professional wrestling career
Training and independent circuit (2004–2006)
After being trained by Mikey Whipwreck, Myers made his debut in 2004, using his real name. He wrestled for the New York Wrestling Connection (NYWC) promotion. By 2005 he began regularly teaming with Brett Matthews and the duo of Myers and Matthews went on to defeat the NYWC Tag Team Champions Dickie Rodz and Mason Raige by disqualification, for which titles do not change hands. 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) to set up a feud where they eventually lost 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 Team Tremendous 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 and Mike Spinelli), who defeated them for the gold on March 26.
World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE
Developmental territories (2006–2007)
On February 24, 2006, Brian Myers signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment. He was given the ring name Brian Majors and teamed up with his former tag team partner Bret Matthews, who was renamed Brett Majors, to form the tag team the Majors Brothers. Together they won the Deep South Wrestling DSW Tag Team Championship on two occasions. They later won the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship.
La Familia and Tag Team Champion (2007–2009)
The team was moved from the developmental territories to the main roster, changing their last names from "Majors" to "Major". The team worked on WWE's ECW brand. The team won their debut match but failed to win any matches in either singles or tag team competition following their debut on the brand. They moved from ECW to SmackDown! as the eighth pick in the 2007 Supplemental Draft. On SmackDown, the team had more success, defeating Chavo Guerrero and Jamie Noble. On November 9, 2007, they received a WWE Tag Team Championship match after winning a #1 contender's battle royal, but lost to WWE Tag Team Champions Montel Vontavious Porter and Matt Hardy in their title match.
At Armageddon, the duo dressed up as Edge and interfered in the World Heavyweight Championship match, replacing Edge during the match to help him win the title, turning heel for the first time in their WWE career. On December 21, 2007, the Major Brothers were revealed as acquaintances to Edge and his lover, SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero. The Major Brothers were repackaged and renamed as Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, with Brian Major becoming "Curt Hawkins" and Brett Major now named "Zack Ryder". Hawkins and Ryder were also, occasionally referred to as "The Rated-R Entourage" by commentators Michael Cole and John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL). Occasionally, the pair teamed with their mentor Edge and/or their "La Familia" associate Chavo Guerrero on SmackDown on several occasions.
At The Great American Bash, Hawkins and Ryder won the WWE Tag Team Championship from John Morrison and The Miz in a fatal-four way tag team match, which also featured Jesse and Festus and Finlay and Hornswoggle after Hawkins pinned Jesse, becoming the youngest tag team champions in WWE history. By SummerSlam in August, La Familia had begun to fracture and Hawkins and Ryder began appearing on their own.
On the September 26, 2008 airing of SmackDown, Hawkins and Ryder lost the titles to Carlito and Primo Colón in their first televised title defense. On April 15, 2009, Ryder was drafted back to the ECW brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft, separating the team.
Florida Championship Wrestling (2009–2010)
Following the draft, Hawkins was on hiatus from television before voluntarily leaving the main roster and transferring to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) for more training. He made his debut losing to Dawson Alexander. In the following weeks, Hawkins won an 8-man battle royal to become the number one contender for Justin Angel's FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship, then lost the championship match. He joined a stable called "The Dude Busters" alongside Caylen Croft and Trent Barreta on November 1, 2009. In late November, Hawkins and Croft won the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship. While they were champions, Croft and Hawkins defended the title with Barreta via the Freebird Rule. On January 14, 2010 at an FCW television taping, The Dude Busters lost the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship to The Fortunate Sons (Brett DiBiase and Joe Hennig).
The Gatecrashers (2010–2011)
Hawkins returned to the SmackDown roster on May 4, 2010, forming a tag team with Vance Archer, defeating Chasyn Rance and JT Talent in a dark match. They made their television debut as a team on the May 13 episode of WWE Superstars, defeating two local competitors. After the match, Hawkins stated that he and Archer had been given a 30-day contract to "make an impact". The team made its SmackDown debut on the May 21 episode, winning another squash match. In an attempt to make an impact, the duo attacked Montel Vontavious Porter and Christian on consecutive episodes of SmackDown on June 4 and 11, which they followed up on by defeating both in a tag team match on June 18. The next week the duo was officially named "The Gatecrashers". The pair also competed in a battle royal on the June 4 episode of SmackDown to replace The Undertaker in the World Heavyweight Championship fatal four-way match at Fatal 4-Way. Hawkins was one of the four final participants in the match, but was eliminated by the eventual winner, Rey Mysterio. After their 30-day contract expired, they were signed to new long-term contracts in storyline. The team came to an end on the October 7 airing of Superstars after a match between Archer and Chris Masters. Archer accidentally struck Hawkins outside the ring after which the two argued and a distracted Archer lost the match. Afterwards, Hawkins assaulted Archer. Hawkins moved to singles competition the following week, defeating Trent Barreta. A rivalry then began between the two shortly after, with Barreta getting the win on the November 18 episode of Superstars. In a rematch the next week, Hawkins defeated Barreta, claiming Barreta's win the week before was a fluke. The feud ended with Barreta coming out on top when Barreta beat Hawkins on the December 9 episode of Superstars.
Teaming with Tyler Reks (2011–2012)
On April 26, Hawkins was drafted to the Raw brand as part of the 2011 Supplemental Draft. Hawkins and Ryder had a brief reunion on the May 19 episode of Superstars, where they teamed together in a losing effort against Kozlov and Santino Marella. After Hawkins beat JTG on the May 26 episode of Superstars, Hawkins returned on the September 8 episode of Superstars, teaming with Tyler Reks to defeat Percy Watson and Titus O'Neil. Hawkins and Reks then began appearing on the fifth season of NXT, by attacking the Usos from behind on the September 27 episode of NXT. Over the next two weeks on NXT, Hawkins and Reks faced the Usos in tag team matches, with Hawkins and Reks winning the first match and the Usos winning the second match. From October, Hawkins, claiming a broken ankle, began to carry around a metal walking cane. However, when Hawkins' injury had healed sufficiently for him to wrestle, he still brought the cane with him to the ring. Hawkins and Reks then lost a non-title match to Air Boom on the December 22 episode of Superstars. Hawkins debuted on Raw on January 9, 2012, and was quickly defeated by a returning Brodus Clay. Hawkins and Reks feuded with Trent Barreta and Yoshi Tatsu from December 2011. Both teams regularly played pranks on each other, Tatsu being locked in a closet and Reks' hands being superglued onto an Xbox controller. The feud ended when Hawkins and Reks defeated Barreta and Tatsu on the January 18 episode of NXT.
Hawkins and Reks then became NXT's troublemakers, tormenting NXT host Matt Striker on his lacklustre career and how they should be main-eventing NXT, even once going to the extent of assaulting him after a match. This forced Striker to appoint William Regal as NXT's prime authority figure on the February 29 episode of NXT. Regal often employed harsh measures to keep Hawkins and Reks in line, including threatening suspensions for bad behaviour and condemning them to janitorial duty, this caused them much frustration. On the March 21 episode of NXT Redemption, a storyline began in which Striker was knocked out with chloroform by Johnny Curtis and Maxine, and then Striker was kidnapped by unknown persons, later revealed to be Hawkins and Reks, who intended to blackmail Maxine into using her charms to get Regal to leave them alone. Unfortunately for Hawkins and Reks, Striker was rescued by Derrick Bateman and Kaitlyn. On the April 18 episode of NXT, the freed Striker confronted Hawkins and Reks about the kidnapping, and Hawkins admitted the crime. As punishment, Regal put Hawkins and Reks in a match against each other, with Striker as referee. The loser would be fired. Even though Reks won to supposedly save his job at the expense of Hawkins', Regal decided to fire Reks as well, sending the two troublemakers away from NXT.
However, Regal could not keep the duo away from NXT for long, as they managed to convince villainous higher authority figure John Laurinaitis to rehire them as NXT's security team on the May 9 episode of NXT. Hawkins and Reks continued to act as Laurinaitis' lackeys, confiscating anti-Laurinaitis signs at Over the Limit and attacking John Cena on the May 21 episode of Raw. Hawkins and Reks' association with Laurinaitis ended after Laurinaitis lost his job at No Way Out. On the final episode of the fifth season of NXT on June 13, Hawkins and Reks defeated Percy Watson and Derrick Bateman.
Hawkins and Reks engaged in a one-sided feud with Ryback in July 2012. After both Hawkins and Reks lost singles matches to Ryback on SmackDown, Ryback defeated both of them in a handicap match at Money in the Bank. At Raw 1,000, Hawkins and Reks, along with four other wrestlers, attempted to ambush Kane to make a statement, but a returning Undertaker interrupted the attack and The Brothers of Destruction disposed of Hawkins and Reks. They again lost to Ryback on the August 6 episode of Raw. After being told by SmackDown General Manager Booker T to "step it up", Hawkins and Reks debuted a stripper gimmick on the August 17 episode of SmackDown while squashing a jobber tag team.
A week later, Reks asked for his release as he intended to retire from wrestling to spend more time with his family; he and WWE parted ways on August 21, thus ending the team. In October, Hawkins announced that he had undergone surgery for a torn posterior cruciate ligament and meniscus.
NXT (2013–2014)
On the January 21, 2013 Raw, a short-haired Hawkins returned on television tapings in a show-closing brawl. He made his return match on the February 9 episode of Saturday Morning Slam, losing to Justin Gabriel. After that Hawkins most commonly appeared on Superstars and NXT where he lost all of his matches. On the May 8, 2014 episode of NXT, Hawkins competed in a battle royal to determine a new #1 contender to the NXT Championship, in which he was unsuccessful. On the May 22 episode of NXT Hawkins faced Adrian Neville in a losing effort.
On June 12, WWE announced that Hawkins had been released from his contract.
Return to the independent circuit (2014–2016)
A day after his release from WWE, Myers wrestled at a Jersey Championship Wrestling (JCW) event, teaming with Val Venis to defeat Danny Demento and Erik Andretti. On June 22 Myers was defeated by AR Fox at a Beyond Wrestling event. On August 29, Myers made his debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), losing to A.J. Styles in the first round of the 2014 Battle of Los Angeles.
In autumn he reunited with his former WWE partner Tyler Reks. The pair tagged together as part of Pro Wrestling Syndicate picking up a win in October against Kevin Matthews and Lance Hoyt. In November they announced their new name, The Heatseekers.
On July 24, 2015, Myers made his Global Force Wrestling (GFW) debut when he entered a tournament to crown the inaugural GFW Global Champion, he lost in the quarterfinal round to Chris Mordetzky.
Grim's Toy Show (2015-2016)
On March 2, 2015 Myers made his first appearance on Grim's Toy Show when he superkicked Ebenezer in the stomach and then just walked off. Grim began getting stalked by a creep running around in Deadpool pajamas calling himself "MJ Appleballs", in order to terrorize Grim in disguise. Appleballs was later unmasked and revealed to be Hawkins, which Grim and Duhop got a restraining order against them so they couldn't go to Create A Pro wrestling school anymore, and even went as far as to hire a cop to arrest Grim if he ever went on the premises again. The feud lasted a while, and many wrestling battles happened at CAP, where Curt continuously cheated by calling in his minions such as Mophead, leading to the phrase 'Hawkins Fears Grim'. Curt was eventually defeated after the YouTube Wrestling Figures Heavyweight Championship.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2015)
Myers made his Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) debut representing GFW on the July 27, 2015 episode of Impact Wrestling, where he teamed with Trevor Lee and lost to The Wolves. On the September 2, 2015 edition of Impact Wrestling, Myers and Lee defeated The Wolves in a rematch to win the TNA World Tag Team Championship. The next week on the September 9, 2015 edition of Impact Wrestling, they lost the title back to The Wolves, ending their reign for only 1 day. On the September 16 edition of Impact Wrestling, Team GFW (Brian Myers, Jeff Jarrett, Eric Young, Chris Mordetzky and Sonjay Dutt) faced Team TNA (Drew Galloway, Lashley, Eddie Edwards, Bram and Davey Richards) in a Lethal Lockdown Match where they lost. At Bound for Glory, he and Trevor Lee had a rematch for the TNA World Tag Team Championship against the Wolves but failed to win the titles.
Return to WWE (2016–present)
On July 21, 2016, Myers signed to make his return to WWE and joined the SmackDown brand. Myers returned to WWE under his Curt Hawkins ring name in vignettes in similar vein of the well-known Chuck Norris facts, beginning in August. This continued until it was announced that he would make his televised in-ring return at the No Mercy pay-per-view. At the event, he "stepped into the ring" and announced his debut match to take place on that week's episode of SmackDown. However, the scheduled match was bumped from the show due to time constraints. The week after on SmackDown, Hawkins was scheduled to face Apollo Crews. After Crews punched Hawkins, Hawkins left the ring before the match could start. Jason Powell of Pro Wrestling Dot Net described Hawkins' gimmick as an "obnoxious heel" that "bounces from being funny to groan-inducing", while praising Hawkins' performance. Hawkins' character was also widely compared to that of Eva Marie, in which Marie would fake unfortunate events to avoid in-ring competition. On the November 1 episode of SmackDown, Hawkins accepted Dolph Ziggler's first open challenge for the Intercontinental Championship, losing to Ziggler in seven seconds. On the November 8 episode of SmackDown, Hawkins earned his first televised victory since returning by defeating Apollo Crews. On the TLC: Tables Ladders and Chairs pre-show, Hawkins made his pay-per-view in-ring return, when he teamed with The Vaudevillains (Aiden English and Simon Gotch) and The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor) against The Hype Bros (Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley), American Alpha (Jason Jordan and Chad Gable) and Crews in a losing effort. In a backstage segment, airing online during the March 14th edition of Smackdown Live!, Hawkins declared he would be competing in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 33. As part of the 2017 WWE Superstar Shake-up, Hawkins became part of the Raw brand.
In other media
Hawkins' first venture into YouTube came in the form of a short lived YouTube series called Callin' Spots with Curt Hawkins, which lasted only two episodes. His first video has since been deleted but has kept up his second video where he thanks Edge for giving him his first opportunity in WWE which was being part of La Familia and for being a friend and mentor.
Hawkins also appeared in Zack Ryder's YouTube series, Z! True Long Island Story. After sporadically appearing on the show he became a regular on the show. Hawkins and Reks have appeared on the show together also. One of Hawkins most memorable segments came after Zack Ryder started to use a cane on his show Scott Stanford, another regular on the show, has come up to Hawkins and Reks saying that they are using the Broski Cane, this has annoyed the pair on every occasion stating that Hawkins used a cane first.
Hawkins and Reks created an animated YouTube series called MidCard Mafia in 2011, but the show upset WWE management, so Hawkins and Reks cancelled the series and removed the uploaded shows.
Hawkins also appeared in multiple episodes of WWE Inbox, a show where Superstars and Divas answer questions submitted by fans on Twitter. On episode five of Santino Marella's "Foreign Exchange," Marella and Yoshi Tatsu gave him their spare change after seeing him wearing his "Change for NXT" shirt.
Personal life
While he was inactive in WWE, in 2013, Myers and Pat Buck opened a wrestling school in Hicksville, New York, Create A Pro wrestling academy.
Myers married his long time girlfriend, Lizzie Karcher on October 9, 2015.
He is also good friends with Zack Ryder and Trent Barreta in real life as they trained together during the early years of their careers.
In wrestling
- Finishing moves
- Heat Seeking Elbow (Diving elbow drop) - 2010-present
- Laugh Riot (Impaler DDT) – adopted from Edge - FCW
- Taste of Pain (Hangman's facebuster) - 2007-2009, 2011–present
- Signature moves
- Enzuigiri
- Multiple suplex variations
- Belly-to-belly
- One Night Stand (Cross-legged high-angle belly-to-back)
- Snap
- Sliding out of the ring, tripping an opponent rebounding against the ropes
- Spear
- Spinebuster
- Superkick
- Upside Down Frown (Twisting delayed scoop slam) – adopted from Norman Smiley
- Nicknames
- "The Party Starter"
- "The Prince of Queens"
- Entrance themes
- "What I Want" by Daughtry featuring Slash (DSW / OVW)
- "Gasoline Upcharge" by Chris Weerts and Daniel Holter (DSW / WWE)
- "In the Middle of it Now" by Disciple and Jim Johnston (WWE; February 1, 2008 – June 12, 2014)
- "Black Fury" by Jim Johnston (WWE; May 13, 2010 - October 7, 2010; used while teaming with Vance Archer)
- "Up All Night" by Hinder (Independent circuit)
- "Face the Facts" by CFO$ (WWE; October 9, 2016 – present)
Championships and accomplishments
- Alpha-1 Wrestling
- A1 Alpha Male Championship (1 time)
- Deep South Wrestling
- DSW Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Majors
- Five Borough Wrestling
- FBW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- Florida Championship Wrestling
- FCW Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time)1 – with Caylen Croft and Trent Barreta
- Ohio Valley Wrestling
- OVW Southern Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Brett Majors
- New York Wrestling Connection
- NYWC Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brett Matthews
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- PWI ranked Hawkins 141 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2008
- Pro Wrestling Syndicate
- PWS Television Championship (2 times, current)
- Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
- TNA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Trevor Lee
- World Wrestling Entertainment
- WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Zack Ryder