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It has officially been three months, give or take a few days, since Matt Riddle was released from WWE.
While his period away from the promotion hasn't been completely silent, as he did comment on the return of CM Punk on social media and earned a pretty massive shoutout from Randy Orton for effectively keeping his professional wrestling career alive amid a serious of injuries that limited his in-ring effectiveness, soon, the floodgates will open and the “King of Bros” will flood back into the public consciousness in a major way.
Why? Well, because he'll officially be finished with his 90-day non-compete clause, allowing him to wrestle wherever and against whomever he'd like. Sitting down for an interview with MuscleManMalcolm, Riddle was asked about his plans moving forward, and he made his intentions pretty clear: He wants to wrestle.
“I would say to keep wrestling,” Matt Riddle said via Fightful. “I'm really good at it. Keep doing that. Doing some things that I haven't done before. I've never wrestled in Japan, so that's on the bucket list in 2024, amongst other things.”
Asked if he has any dream matches he'd like to work in the not-too-distant future, Riddle disclosed that he'd like to test his mettle against the “Best Bout Machine,” even though the prospects of that bout have now been called into question due to a medical emergency.
“Kenny is hurt now. I saw that, indefinitely,” Riddle said. “That was sad. I really wanted to wrestle him. With my release, that could have been an opportunity, but now it's not. There are tons of opponents out there.”
Would it be cool to see Matt Riddle wrestle Kenny Omega, be it in AEW, New Japan Pro Wrestling, or another promotion like DDT? Sure, Omega has long talked about wanting to get in the ring with Kurt Angle and could probably put together a similar match against a performer with a similar shoot-fighting style. When that will happen, however, remains to be seen, as it's anyone's guess when Omega will be eligible to wrestle again.
AEW's Tony Khan updates fans on Kenny Omega's illness.
Speaking of Kenny Omega and the medical emergency that will keep him out of action indefinitely – it has been reported as diverticulitis, but that hasn't been made official by AEW or Omega – Tony Khan provided fans with an update on his EVP's health during the Ring of Honor Final Battle media scrum.
“I know Kenny put out a statement of his own and I completely support it. I spoke to him today and of course we've been very concerned. It's hard to focus on pro wrestling when it's somebody you care about and somebody that is so responsible for all of this in so many ways. I don't know if we could have launched AEW and this all been possible without Kenny Omega. Certainly, he's as influential on the launch of AEW as anybody. He's one of the greatest pro wrestlers in the world and an important figure in this promotion and this business,” Tony Khan told the reporters in attendance via Fightful.
“I think we're all really concerned, but thankfully he's communicating and we're hoping for the best and it's taken a turn for the better. The most important thing is he got help from the doctors at the right time and didn't wait any longer because he's in a lot of pain and I don't think we knew how sick he was or nobody would have wanted him to…to be honest, I'll leave it to him to get updates because he's already been communicating and it's his health and I don't want to speak for him, but we're all praying or Kenny Omega and thankfully there is good reason to be optimistic, but we were all worried about him, but it was honestly really hard the last 24 hours focusing on wrestling when somebody who is part of our wrestling family who has something happening that's not wrestling like that. Whenever there is a real life situation, it always takes the most precedence. We're thinking of Kenny Omega and hoping he gets well soon and wishing him the best, and sometimes it's not about wrestling, even on a great night of wrestling like this.”
Say what you will about Omega as a wrestler, be he the best wrestler in the world or a weird, video game-obsessed grappler with finger guns, but no one, not even his biggest critics like Jim Cornette, wishes him ill physically, as some things are bigger than the sport. Whether it takes a month, three, or more, hopefully, Omega will be back and better than ever in no time.
