Matt Riddle Reveals Reason for Abrupt NJPW Departure

Matt Riddle was released by WWE back in 2023 and after a few months of waiting, he immediately made his way to NJPW and had a solid run there. However, his run ended abruptly and fans felt he could have done more, and now Riddle has explained why his NJPW run ended all of a sudden.

While speaking to SHAK Wrestling, Matt Riddle explained why his time with NJPW came to an end, stating that it started with a scheduling conflict. He was supposed to do a tour with them, but he already had a match planned with Rob Van Dam and didn’t want to miss it. He offered to join the tour late and leave early, but NJPW simply declined.

“Yeah, you know, New Japan was great. Honestly, I was supposed to go over there and do a tour when I first started working with them, but I had a scheduling conflict. I had a match with RVD, actually, that I had scheduled, and me being me, there was no way I could miss a match with RVD. So, I told New Japan I could come in during the first week of the tour, but then I’d have to leave the second week and be back before the weekend was over. They said that wasn’t going to work, and I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Riddle worked a few matches for NJPW, including in Chicago, California, and Japan, where he lost the NJPW World TV Title to Zack Sabre Jr. Later, NJPW planned another show in California, but Riddle already had a booking with MLW, a company he said always supported him. He chose to stick with MLW, and after that, NJPW stopped reaching out to him.

“Then I worked for them in Chicago. I dropped the title to Zack Sabre Jr., and they wanted me to wrestle again. I think they had one in Sacramento or San Jose—somewhere in California—and then they had one on the beach or near California again. I had already done one in Cali, the one in Chicago, and another in Sapporo, Japan.

But when they planned the next one for California, I had a booking with MLW. Like I said, MLW kind of comes first. They’ve been taking care of me, and I’ve worked with them in the past. Ever since I told New Japan, ‘Hey, I have a booking that day with MLW,’ they haven’t reached out since. “

Riddle made it clear that he believed it wasn’t personal. He added that his schedule is always packed with two or three matches every weekend, and the timing just didn’t work out with NJPW’s plans. It was ultimately all about bad timing and busy schedules.

“The thing is, I really build up my schedule early. I wrestle a lot—like two or three times a weekend, usually—and their schedule didn’t pencil me in. So, they’d call or ask me to do a date, and I’d already be booked. That’s just how it goes. They have a lot going on, a lot of moving pieces.”

Matt Riddle’s journey post-WWE has been anything but dull, and his NJPW experience shows how challenging it can be to balance a packed schedule in the business. Regardless, we’ll have to see if he will ever return to NJPW again as fans would love to see The King of Bros back.

Do you think Matt Riddle made the right call by sticking with MLW over NJPW, or could he have handled things differently? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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