Matt Riddle

[9] Riddle later attended East Stroudsburg University on an athletic scholarship, where he was a member of its wrestling team for two years and won many championships.[17] After his recovery, Riddle fought and defeated Steve Bruno in a unanimous decision (29–28, 29–28, 29–28) at UFC Fight Night: Lauzon vs. Stephens.[23] Pierson defeated Riddle via unanimous decision (30–27, 30–27, 30–27) and the bout was dubbed by president Dana White as the real Fight of the Night.Riddle was expected to face Ultimate Fighter castmate, Matt Brown, on March 3, 2011, at UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann, replacing an injured Mark Scanlon.[26] Riddle faced undefeated welterweight prospect Lance Benoist who had made his Octagon debut on September 17, 2011, at UFC Fight Night: Shields vs.[48] Riddle was expected to face MMA legend Jose Landi-Jons for the vacant Welterweight Championship at Titan FC 29 on August 22, 2014.On September 15, it was announced that Riddle had signed with the World Wrestling Network (WWN) to work the October Evolve events,[53] which he later confirmed after taking part in a WWE tryout.[56] On September 3, Riddle made his debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), entering the 2016 Battle of Los Angeles tournament, from which he was eliminated in his first round match by Kyle O'Reilly.[57] In October, Riddle faced Cody Rhodes at New York promotion House of Glory's show titled Unbreakable in a losing effort.[58] Riddle debuted for Revolution Pro Wrestling on January 21, challenging Katsuyori Shibata for the British Heavyweight Championship in a losing effort.[62] On October 20, Riddle and Jeff Cobb, known collectively as "The Chosen Bros", defeated the Lucha Brothers (Rey Fenix and Penta el Zero M) to win the PWG World Tag Team Championship.[70] At NXT TakeOver: WarGames II on November 17, Riddle began a feud with Kassius Ohno, who interrupted him during an interview on the pre-show.[72] At NXT TakeOver: Phoenix on January 26, 2019, Riddle defeated Ohno for a third time after making him submit with a series of elbow strikes to the head, ending their feud.[73] The following month, WWE Network released a documentary on his wrestling career and entry into NXT entitled Arrival: Matt Riddle.[83][84] On the November 1 episode of SmackDown, Riddle and Keith Lee were one of the many NXT wrestlers to invade the show, confronting and attacking Sami Zayn.Later that night, Riddle joined Triple H and the rest of the NXT roster as they declared war on both Raw and SmackDown, and vowed to win the Survivor Series brand warfare.[90] They defeated Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster in the first round, Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel of Imperium in the semifinals, and Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake and Zack Gibson) in the finals to win the tournament and earn a match against Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly of The Undisputed Era for the NXT Tag Team Championship at NXT TakeOver: Portland.[107][108] On the January 25 episode of Raw, Riddle defeated The Hurt Business (Cedric Alexander, MVP, and Shelton Benjamin) in a gauntlet match to earn another title opportunity against Lashley.Later that night, Orton defeated AJ Styles in a match following assistance from Riddle and afterwards pretended to hug him but instead hit him with an RKO as a sign of gratitude.[121] On the January 10 episode of Raw, RK-Bro lost the titles to Alpha Academy (Chad Gable and Otis), ending their reign at 142 days.[125] At Night 2 of WrestleMania 38 on April 3, RK-Bro successfully defended their titles in another triple threat tag team match against Alpha Academy and the Street Profits.[129][130] The unification match later took place on the May 20 episode of SmackDown, where RK-Bro lost their titles to The Usos, ending their second reign at 74 days.[140] On the September 19 episode of Raw, it was announced that they would have a rematch in a Fight Pit match on October 8 at Extreme Rules,[141] where Riddle defeated Rollins by submission.[155] On February 24, at Intimidation Games, Riddle successfully defended his NJPW World Television Championship against Bad Dude Tito.[158] On January 11, 2025 at Kings of Colosseum, Riddle defeated Satoshi Kojima to win the MLW World Heavyweight Championship for the first time.[160] It was then announced that Riddle would be making his NJPW in-ring debut at Battle in the Valley, teaming with a mystery partner against Zack Sabre Jr. and Bad Dude Tito of TMDK.[164] On February 2, 2024, Riddle made his return to the independent circuit at Adrenaline Championship Wrestling's Bromance in Hagerstown, Maryland, defeating Chris Slade.[165] On March 9, Matt Riddle would face Rob Van Dam in a singles match ending in a no contest at World Classic Professional Big Time Wrestling's The Reunion 3: Calvacade Of Legends in Chillicothe, Ohio.[168] Riddle made his debut for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) at Turning Point on November 29, 2024, where he teamed with Kushida and Zachary Wentz in a losing effort to The Hardys and Ace Austin.[180] WWE released a statement claiming they were looking into the incident;[181] Riddle immediately denied the allegations in a video posted to his Twitter page.