Recently released WWE star responds to allegations of stripping down to his underwear
A few weeks ago, WWE released Matt Riddle, with several other superstars, from their contracts. The Original Bro has been involved in many controversies during his time with the Stamford-based company. He recently spoke about the sexual harassment allegations that were made against him a few years ago.
In 2020, during the #SpeakingOut movement, a tweet describing a situation that entailed a female wrestling veteran's altercation with another wrestler came to light. The post highlighting the altercation between the two wrestlers was deleted, but Journalist David Bixenspan dug deeper into the issue and published a statement from Matt Riddle.
David Bixenspan approached Malia Hosaka, the woman who made sexual allegations against WWE Superstar Matt Riddle, and she recalled the night over Facebook Messenger with Bixenspan.
"We were all in there, our show was going on. 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," Hosaka recalled.
Later, Riddle responded to the claims, saying that what occurred that night wasn't really an incident. He claimed that there was only one changing room and that the promoter asked him to use that room to change in.
"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."
Did Matt Riddle have heat backstage in WWE?
Before returning to his singles career over a year ago, Matt Riddle was tag-teaming with Randy Orton. The two enjoyed a long RAW Tag Team Championship reign before losing a Title Unification match against The Usos in May 2022.
According to a recent report, Riddle had heat backstage after he accidentally revealed that The Viper was suffering from injury during a WWE RAW promo last year.
"[Matt] Riddle also had heat with management at one point right after that for going off the script and putting over [Randy] Orton on a live television interview when talking about how much pain Orton was in during the latter stages of their team and before the injury angle was shot. While praised for the promo going behind the scenes and being real, it was not what was scripted for him."
It will be interesting to see what Matt Riddle does following his WWE release. Do you want to see The Original Bro back in action with another promotion? Let us know in the comments section below.