October 2, 2023 Observer Newsletter: WWE releases Matt Riddle, more on Terry Funk

Matt Riddle, 37, ended up being the biggest name as far as recent push goes among the WWE cuts since the recent merger.

Unlike all of the cuts with the exception of Yulisa Leon, Riddle was not released based on budget cuts or performance, but because of outside the ring incidents.

The most recent incident took place a few weeks ago at JFK Airport in New York when coming back from the show in India. There was no arrest made or even a police write up of an incident where airport security showed up after he was allegedly creating a disturbance, but he then claimed in social media that security allegedly sexually assaulted him, a claim he later took down.

It was said that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Riddle had raised the ire of some of the veterans from day one, whether it was saying Bill Goldberg wasn’t any good as a wrestler, or claiming in a real fight he’d beat Roman Reigns. Riddle was a trained UFC fighter and former New York State champion in wrestling who beat Jon Jones in wrestling when both were in high school, something that WWE never mentioned when promoting him but almost every other promotion in history would have pushed to death. He had numerous incidents over the years of complaints from women after relationships had fallen apart, had a very public lawsuit by one (a suit filed also against WWE and Evolve where both promotions were thrown out of the suit quickly and the suit ended up being dropped with both sides agreeing not to talk about whatever agreement was made publicly) and failed two WWE drug tests.

Several in the company noted that he probably would have been among the top stars in the company, but because of the constant negative stuff that had come out, they were not going to push him past mid-level at this point.

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