Buddy Matthews to make NJPW debut at Battle in the Valley
The former Buddy Murphy is on his way to NJPW.
Buddy Matthews will debut for the promotion on the Saturday, November 13 Battle in the Valley event in San Jose, California.
NJPW made the announcement with a video promo during tonight’s NJPW Strong tapings in Philadelphia. The video can be seen below. The company later tweeted the video, which Matthews then retweeted.
The tweet read:
“‘They say as one door closes, another opens… Maybe it was staring at me the entire time.’
Buddy Matthews is coming.”
Matthews joins an announced lineup for Battle in the Valley that includes Jay White, Will Ospreay, Tomohiro Ishii and Juice Robinson. No matches have been made official for the event as of yet.
Matthews was released from his WWE contract on June 2, 2021. He had been with the company since signing in March 2013. After a lengthy run in NXT, Matthews joined the 205 Live brand when it was part of WWE’s main roster in 2018.
Matthews had a run on SmackDown in 2019, but had his most high-profile run after joining Raw in the 2019 WWE Draft. With Paul Heyman as Executive Director of Raw, Matthews and Aleister Black had a series of matches late in the year and in early 2020 that served to elevate both.
Matthews aligned with Seth Rollins and feuded with Black and the Mysterio family in 2020. Matthews later turned face and began a storyline romance with Mysterio’s daughter Aalyah. The romance storyline was later abruptly dropped.
Matthews would make only a couple of more WWE appearances after the Mysterio story was discontinued. His appearance in the 2021 Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the April 9, 2021 edition of SmackDown would be his last in WWE.
The NJPW appearance will be the most high-profile for Matthews since leaving WWE, though he wrestled a pair of independent matches in September following his non-compete expiring.
An indie match against Black for Battleground Championship Wrestling on December 18 in Philadelphia has also been announced.