Background
Cardenas was born Stephen Antonio Cardenas on May 29, 1974 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Cardenas was born Stephen Antonio Cardenas on May 29, 1974 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
After living his first two years in Virginia. Beach, Cardenas was raised in San Antonio, Texas. He is of half Mexican descent.
He started training in martial arts when he was about 12 years old and reached black belt in tae kwon do at age 16.
Steve Cardenas has been in martial arts for 28 years. He earned 5th degree black belt in tae kwon do and a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
At age 20, Cardenas moved to Los Angeles to audition for a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers role that would change his life. His character, Rocky, replaced Jason Lee Scott (played by Austin Street John) as the Red Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television series, and he later became the Blue Ranger for Power Rangers Zeo.
He had no previous acting experience and had to learn on the job.
Cardenas left the Power Rangers series during Power Rangers Turbo, due to contract disagreements. Many years later, starting at the 2007 Power Morphicon convention, he began making convention appearances with other former cast members. He has since appeared at Anime Expo 2009 and Power Morphicon 2010.
After Power Rangers, he owns a martial arts studio in Burbank, California and in Texas.
Cardenas had become interested in Brazilian jiu-jitsu after losing a friendly match against "a blue belt in BJJ.. choked me out in 10 seconds! He was only training for a year and a half at that time and I had been training for 10 years lieutenant was an immediate eye opener." The style was more difficult for him to learn than other martial arts disciplines.
