Hawkins debuted on WWE's ECW brand in 2007 in the tag team The Major Brothers with storyline brother Brett Major, where he was known as Brian Major. The team won their debut match against Matt Striker and Marcus Cor Von of The New Breed on the May 1 episode of ECW, 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. They made their SmackDown! debut on July 6, defeating jobbers Jeremy Young and Mike Fox. On the November 9 episode of SmackDown!, 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 also involving The Undertaker and Batista, replacing Edge during the match to help him win the title, thus turning heel for the first time in their WWE career. On the December 21 taping of SmackDown!, 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. Their team name also became The Edgeheads, due to their resemblance to him.
On the January 4, 2008 episode of SmackDown!, Hawkins and Ryder competed against Batista in a 2-on-1 handicap match to a draw in a Beat The Clock Challenge when the time ran out. After assisting Edge in most of his matches for multiple months, Hawkins and Ryder captured 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 at The Great American Bash in July, becoming the youngest tag team champions in WWE history up to that point. By SummerSlam in August, La Familia had begun to fracture and Hawkins and Ryder began appearing on their own.
On the September 26 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. Following the draft, Hawkins went on hiatus from television for almost a full year.
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, 2010 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.
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 Vladimir 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 2011, 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 lackluster 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, 2012 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 1000, 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; 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.
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 number one contender for 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 was released from his contract.
On July 21, 2016, Hawkins signed to make his return to WWE and joined the SmackDown brand. Hawkins returned to WWE in vignettes, stating that it was "time to face the facts" 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 Live. However, the scheduled match was bumped from the show due to time constraints. The week after on SmackDown Live, Hawkins was scheduled to face Apollo Crews. After Crews punched Hawkins, Hawkins left the ring before the match could start. On the November 1 episode of SmackDown Live, 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, which would be his last televised victory until 2019. On the TLC: Tables Ladders and Chairs pre-show, Hawkins made his pay-per-view in-ring return, where he teamed with The Ascension and The Vaudevillains against Apollo Crews, American Alpha, and The Hype Bros in a losing effort. On the March 14, 2017 episode of SmackDown Live, in a backstage segment, Hawkins declared he would be competing in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 33, where the match was won by Mojo Rawley.
On April 10, Hawkins was moved to the Raw brand as part of the Superstar Shake-up. During this time, he suffered many losses to Apollo Crews, Finn Bálor, Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan. In July 2017, it was revealed that Hawkins had a losing streak of 100 matches, claimed by WWE to be the longest losing streak of the 'modern era'. This was soon included into Hawkins’ gimmick. At Great Balls of Fire on July 9, Hawkins competed in his only main card pay-per-view match of 2017, in a quick loss to Heath Slater. By the end of 2017, Hawkins failed to win a match, ending the year with over 150 consecutive losses. In early 2018, Hawkins regularly wrestled on Main Event and continued his losing streak, with Hawkins achieving numerous near falls and being described as a "sympathetic figure at this point."
At WrestleMania 34, Hawkins competed in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal which was won by Matt Hardy. At the Greatest Royal Rumble, Hawkins entered at number 43, but was quickly eliminated by Braun Strowman. On the June 4 episode of Raw, Hawkins earned his 200th consecutive loss to a local wrestler after Baron Corbin interrupted Hawkins' match and attacked his opponent, causing Hawkins to lose via disqualification. In November, Hawkins competed in the second season of WWE Mixed Match Challenge, teaming with Ember Moon after Moon's previous partner Braun Strowman was unable to compete due to an elbow injury. On November 27, Hawkins and Moon were eliminated from the competition, losing to Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox in the quarterfinals.
On the January 21, 2019 episode of Raw, Hawkins attempted to persuade Vince McMahon into booking him in a match, but was instead inserted as the special guest referee for The Revival's (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson) Raw Tag Team Championship match against Bobby Roode and Chad Gable, in which The Revival lost after Hawkins witnessed them attempting to cheat three times, allowing Roode and Gable to win. After the match, Hawkins turned face after he was attacked by The Revival, until Zack Ryder came to Hawkins' aid, foreshadowing a reunion. Hawkins competed in the Royal Rumble match entering at number 9, eliminating Titus O'Neil before being eliminated by Samoa Joe. The following night on Raw, Hawkins and Ryder teamed up, where they were defeated by The Revival.
On April 5, WWE announced that Hawkins and Ryder would face The Revival at WrestleMania 35 for the Raw Tag Team Championship. At WrestleMania, after having amassed a losing streak of 269 matches, Hawkins pinned Scott Dawson to win the Raw Tag Team Championship and ended his losing streak. The next night on Raw, Hawkins and Ryder made their first successful title defense, defeating The Revival in a rematch. Following that, the team was largely absent from television mainly appearing on live events. Even though they were the champions, they only made one appearance on WWE programming during the month of May, a loss to the Viking Raiders on May 6. On the June 10 episode of Raw, Ryder and Hawkins dropped the titles back to The Revival in a tag-team triple threat match, which also involved The Usos. On November 14 at a live event in Mannheim, Germany, Hawkins and Ryder defeated The O.C. (Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson), and The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) in a triple threat tag-team match to become the #1 contenders for the Raw Tag Team Championships for the November 17 episode of Raw.
On April 15, 2020, Hawkins was released from his WWE contract.