Matt Cardona, formerly known as Zack Ryder, won a Battle Royal to earn a shot at Bryan Danielson’s United States Title at a WWE house show from Madison Square Garden in 2010.
He recounted this story on episode 44 of ‘MC! True Long Island Story’:
“I’ve never really gotten to work Daniel Bryan in like a long-form match, like one-on-one, something I always wanted to do. There was one time, it’s like — I wanna say it’s a year prior to this [Fatal 4-Way match in 2011 involving Cardona, Dolph Ziggler, Bryan Danielson & Cody Rhodes]. I thought we were gonna have a match and we were putting together a little banger in The Garden, MSG. The first match on the show was a Battle Royal. Whoever won the Battle Royal would go on later in the night to wrestle Daniel Bryan and it’s so funny, I was supposed to be eliminated like first or second in the Battle Royal but there was this horrible snowstorm so people kept not being able to make it so it’s like, ‘All right, this person’s gonna win. Oh no, he can’t make it. This person’s gonna win. Oh, he can’t make it.’ Eventually, ‘F*ck, Zack Ryder’s gonna win.’ So I end up winning because there’s a snowstorm and people couldn’t make it and I’m like, ‘All right, I’ll f*cking show this company.’ I was putting together a match with Daniel Bryan. I was a heel at the time, he was a babyface, and I remember like, it felt like minutes before we went out, Dean Malenko who was the producer was like, ‘Hey, get it done as quick as you can.’ I think it’s like ding, ding, ding, I jump him, I hit him with like a neck breaker, I go for another one, he hooks on that submission move.”
H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcript