On a recent edition of “The Kurt Angle Show” podcast, former WWE Superstar Matt Riddle explained why he enjoyed wrestling in the WWE Thunderdome during the COVID-19 pandemic following his main roster call-up in 2020.
Riddle was released from his WWE contract in September 2023 following which he signed with MLW.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his main roster call-up in 2020: “You know, going to the SmackDown roster, I knew it was the big show. You know, not that Raw isn’t, Raw’s been there forever. But when you first get called up, getting called up to Raw is cool, but when you first get called up, getting called up to SmackDown because it’s on Fox and it’s like, there’s a lot of prestige. At least at that time, when you announced me, there’s a lot. I don’t know how it is now things have changed [with Endeavor taking over]. There’s a lot of moving pieces. But when I was there, the place to be was on Fox, especially during COVID and everything else, because it was like most watched things going. So it was huge, I knew I was put in a fantastic spot.”
On wrestling in the ThunderDome: “Honestly, highly enjoyable. You know, not because I don’t like the fans. It’s even more enjoyable with the fans. But like, when you wrestle in high school, there’s sometimes you wrestle and there’s not that many people in the stands sometimes. And when I was on The Ultimate Fighter, we basically bought in like — we’re fighting, we’re breaking faces. I broke a dude’s jaw in front of like 15 people. But to me it was like, ‘Oh whatever.’ You know, it’s just like, it’s a job, you know. I can still get that adrenaline pumping, even if there are no people or there are people. Because I just psych myself up.
“So I was gonna get used to that situation. I know a lot of the guys I worked with weren’t happy with it of course. Because, ‘No crowd, how do you feel about the moments? How do I set? Usually, I pace myself here.’ Well when there’s no crowd or anything, it was kind of more like sport. Because you didn’t have to wait for the crowd or — you’re still listening, the ref’s giving cues. But then again it’s like, there’s nothing to really give cues on. You know the match, you’re given the times. You know what you’re filming for. And then even when we went live, it was pretty much the same because we didn’t have to work around a crowd or anything random, right.”
