The following is from WWE.com:
When Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder captured the WWE Tag Team Championship at The Great American Bash, they did more than prove themselves as a winning pair in front of their hometown fans. The Long Island natives made history by becoming the youngest champions to hold tag titles in WWE history.
“What we’ve accomplished is pretty spectacular. I want people out there who are over the age of 23 to stop and reflect on what they were doing at our age, because what have you accomplished? I know Zack Ryder and I are 23 years old and we’re already WWE Tag Team Champions,” said Hawkins.
Collectively, Hawkins and Ryder don’t even rack up a half of a century of life experience. They are younger than some of WWE’s most legendary tag champions including seven-time Tag Team Champions Matt and Jeff Hardy.
“Curt and I delivered. Everyone who said we couldn’t do it, we proved them wrong. Like Curt said, we’re only 23 years old and we won the gold,” Ryder added. “While we were making history, I looked out into the crowd at Nassau Coliseum I saw people I went to high school with.”
WWE Tag Team Champions Hawkins and Ryder believe their lives haven’t changed much since climbing atop SmackDown’s tag team division, because they claim they’ve always been champions, but the gold only solidified their prestige. Now, the tandem plans to continue to set lofty goals for themselves.
“Now, we can challenge the World Tag Team Champions, John Cena and Batista, and become the No. 1 tag team in all of the WWE Universe,” Hawkins boasted.