Chelsea Green has a pretty hilarious explanation for why she started calling Matt Cardona “babe” so much. It wasn’t because she was being extra romantic—it was because she genuinely couldn’t remember his real name.
The funny confession came during a couples game on Casuals with Katie Nolan. Chelsea Green and Matt Cardona were asked what pet name they use for each other the most, and both answered, “Babe.”
That simple question reminded Green of a story she’d apparently never even told Cardona. She admitted she used to make fun of couples who constantly called each other “babe.” Then she started doing the exact same thing, but for a reason she couldn’t really control.
“Do you know what’s funny? I used to make fun of everyone. Everyone growing up. I was like, ‘Oh, babe. Babe, babe.’ But I don’t know that I’ve ever said this to Matt’s face, but I say it all the time to other people. I could not remember Matt’s real name.”
Green explained that when they first got together, nobody around Cardona actually called him Matt. Instead, everyone knew him as Zack Ryder, including his closest friends, so that’s the name she constantly heard.
“Like, because everyone… No, everyone called him Zack. Everyone called him his wrestling name. All his friends… Yeah. All his friends called him that. Everyone in his life called him that.”
That made things even more confusing because she hadn’t met his family yet. Looking back, Green thinks meeting his parents earlier probably would’ve solved the problem. Instead, everyone around her kept reinforcing the idea that he was simply “Zack.”
“I didn’t know his parents yet. Like, that would have been different if I knew his family, but everyone knew him as Zack. And nobody called him Matt until I feel like I was with him and only called him Matt. And then slowly… still people call him Zack.”
That’s when Cardona somehow made the story even better. He revealed that it wasn’t just friends and coworkers using his WWE name. According to Cardona, even his own father called him Zack while he was working as Zack Ryder.
“People didn’t even… my dad didn’t start calling me Matt until I got fired and wasn’t Zack anymore.”
Chelsea Green could only laugh because, in her mind, that’s exactly how everyone knew him, saying, “Like, he was Zack.” Matt Cardona agreed, as he also said, “He was Zack.”
Most wrestlers leave their ring names at work. Cardona apparently took his home with him, to the point where even his own dad was calling him Zack. It’s probably one of the few relationships that started with someone genuinely forgetting their partner’s real name.
What’s the funniest wrestling-related story you’ve heard from a real-life couple? Let us know in the comments below.
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