Height: 6’2”
Weight: 216 lbs.
Hometown: Allentown, PA
Style: MMA
Signature Moves: Bro To Sleep, Bromission (twister)
Barefoot swagger has given way to bare-knuckle contempt.
Once known for surfer-cool smiles and laid-back bravado, Matt Riddle now stalks Major League Wrestling with a chip on his shoulder and a sneer for anyone in his path. Notorious for grabbing headlines on TMZ and lighting up social media for all the wrong reasons, Riddle has chosen a controversial fork in the road, embracing his inner “Rude Dude” and daring the world to deal with it.
Riddle is a loose cannon, firing shots and physical threats at just about anyone—from MLW’s locker room to the world of MMA. He no longer seeks approval, cheers, or forgiveness. The rulebook? Optional. The consequences? Irrelevant. Riddle wrestles like a man with nothing left to lose and no interest in restraint.
That volatility has always been there. After closing out his mixed-martial-arts career on a four-fight winning streak, Riddle stormed into MLW and surged to the main-event scene. His first run peaked with a razor-thin loss in the 2018 World Heavyweight Championship tournament—an early taste of how close dominance could be.
June 2024 marked a turning point. Riddle outlasted 39 fighters to win Battle RIOT VI, then cashed in on January 11, 2025, at Kings of Colosseum in Dallas, dethroning Satoshi Kojima to capture the MLW World Heavyweight Championship and fulfill a lifelong goal of holding gold in combat sports. But something shifted after the climb.
As fans turned on him for making headlines away from the ring, Riddle leaned in. The jeers grew louder. The gestures from the crowd grew sharper. And Riddle? He seemed to enjoy every second of it.
From dyeing his hair purple to breaking the rules and running his mouth, Riddle’s metamorphosis has been total.
Inside the ring, he remains lethal: a Brazilian jiu-jitsu savant capable of ending fights with flying knees, heel hooks, or sheer defiance. The difference now is intent.
The question hanging over MLW is simple and dangerous: will this new attitude ignite another era of domination and championship gold… or send Matt Riddle into a legendary crash and burn?
Either way, Riddle doesn’t care who gets caught in the fallout.
