Matt Riddle has denied any wrongdoing after sexual misconduct allegations re-emerged.
Following Riddle’s departure from WWE a number of historic sexual misconduct allegations again made their way round social media. Once such an incident was originally highlighted in a tweet by Indiana-based wrestler Thunderkitty in 2020, who claimed Riddle had gotten changed in the women’s locker room in front of a “well respected veteran lady wrestler” and others, and became aggressive when confronted.
It has now been reported by David Bixenspan that the incident took place in September 2016 at a double-header that Queens of Combat did with PWX. The unnamed female veteran was booked on the first show, and Riddle was booked on the latter.
The female talent in question was discovered to be Malia Hosaka, who gave the following account of what took place.
“We were all in there, our show was going on,” Hosaka recalled when asked about the story via Facebook Messenger. “I didn’t know who he was, but I was sitting with my feet propped up and eyes closed. When I opened them[,] he was on my right stripped down to his underwear and I got mad at the lack of respect from today’s generation. For him to come into the locker room to change while the women had the room[,] and to strip down and change was disrespectful.
There was a bathroom down the hall that fans couldn’t get to that he could have used. [In m]y generation[,] the men and women respected each other enough to at least ask if it was ok or to ask for privacy. It pissed me off[,] and then his attitude that he had underwear on and that it wasn’t a big deal pissed me off more[,] so I told him how I felt about the lack of respect.”
In response to the allegations, Riddle said what happened “wasn’t even an incident.”
“The PWX thing wasn’t even an incident[,]” claimed Riddle when reached for comment via text message. “[T]here was only one locker room (which isn’t uncommon on the indies unfortunately) [and] the promoter told me to change in there[,] so I did. Malia confronted me on my way out, I explained that the promoter told me to go change in there and she talked to the promoter and that was the end of it.”
The report from Bixenspan notes that those familiar with the situation dispute Riddle’s version of events, stating that PWX always had two locker rooms if women were booked to appear.
Furthermore, if the locker room used by Queens of Combat was repurposed as the locker room for the PWX show, all of the men working the PWX event were told not to enter until all women had left the space.
In the report, numerous other statements from Riddle’s camp about that day were also heavily disputed.
Matt Riddle Released By WWE
The former MMA star was released by WWE on September 22, 2023, bringing an end to his five-year run with the company.
Following his release, it was reported that one WWE higher-up said Matt Riddle has simply burned through too many chances with the company.