Matt Riddle recently appeared on “The MMA Hour” podcast to discuss the sexual assault and trafficking allegations that have been levied against Vince McMahon, which ultimately led to McMahon resigning from all of his positions in TKO and WWE. The lawsuit names McMahon, WWE and John Laurinaitis as plaintiffs.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On if he ever heard anything regarding Vince McMahon: “I’ve never heard anything about Vince. I’ve seen certain people, I’m not going to mention names, I’ve seen certain people make passes at certain female talent by saying, ‘Come to my locker room’ or that creepy kind of thing. The woman I talked to didn’t go and was above that. She’s a stallion and was like, ‘I’m not doing that.’ Like, ‘Here’s my number; come to my locker room.’ That’s where it ended, but it could have escalated, and if that person was in fear of their job or wasn’t as over as they are, they probably would have gone there because ‘what am I supposed to do?’ Damn, I probably would have went there, ‘I just need the job.’”
On the allegations against McMahon: “Some of the things I’ve read are pretty disturbing, if true. At the same time, I’ve read the texts, which can be considered kind of disturbing, in a way. The hard part for me with all this is….it’s a finicky area. It seems like he ends up in these situations. There are always large sums of money involved. I don’t know. I have no idea. I know my situation and how it was. For me, I feel like that’s how I feel about situations because that was my experience, being falsely accused. I don’t know, maybe he’s falsely accused, but those texts, there are good amount of texts. It’s a pretty big trial situation. A lot of money involved. NDAs were issued and signed at one point. I don’t know. There are a lot of red flags, for sure.
“I don’t think it was great. There are a lot of red flags in professional wrestling, period. There are a lot of red flags in Hollywood, period. It’s not a knock on Hollywood or wrestling. When you run billion dollar industries that are fueled by athletes or good looking people or actors or entertainers, and how you choose said entertainers, there’s a lot of room for mess. With WWE, my situation, sent me to rehab. I won’t say anything bad. They did the best they could and what they thought was best for me. I honestly think that. I think they thought putting my in rehab throughout the holidays for the remainder of the year, they thought it was the best thing for me. I disagree. Maybe the first month, take the holidays, but another 30 days was a little rough and you overdid it, but I get why you did it. You’re protecting yourself and investment and you’re looking out of me. Nine times out of ten, WWE did the right thing, but there are still going to be a couple of bad apples. Entertainment is a weird world and it’s a lot of politics and navigation. I feel WWE does the best they can. MLW and New Japan do the best they can, and that’s why I align myself with these companies.”
