Matt Riddle looks back.
Before transitioning to the world of pro wrestling, Matt Riddle competed in an octagon and put together an 8-3 record during his time as a pro fighter. It is well known that Riddle is a user of marijuana and that came to light during his time in the UFC. In February of 2013 at 'UFC On Fuel TV', Riddle defeated Che Mills and just a few days after that bout, Riddle revealed that he failed his second drug test of the year in-which he tested positive for marijuana.
This led to Riddle being released from the UFC. In the months following Riddle's release from the company, UFC President Dana White did an interview with Chael Sonnen on FOX Sports and became passionate when the topic of Matt Riddle came up. Prior to the aforementioned interview, Riddle had publicly spoken about how he was not treated well in the UFC and they were putting him at risk of suffering brain damage and those remarks drew the following response from Dana White:
"From 2011 to 2013, that guy was making $162,000 a year." White said. "Then he comes out and says he was treated horrible. He was making something like $52 or $54,000 a fight to fight three times a year. We have health insurance here, which has never been done in the history of the world with fight promoters. The reason he's not in UFC any more is because he could not pass a drug test." Dana explained. "You have to go to work three times a year, and you couldn't pass a drug test? You're so weak-minded and so addicted to marijuana, that you couldn't stay off it enough to pass a drug test three times a year. Well, guess what dummy? they drug test in the real world too."
Matt Riddle has since found success in the pro wrestling world and has held the WWN Championship as well as the EVOLVE and PROGRESS Atlas Titles. After spending four years as an independent wrestler, Riddle signed with WWE and that was officially announced at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV on August 18th. Riddle recently took a look back at the past five years of his professional life and shared a clip on Twitter of Dana White making the comments that are italicized above and at the end of the clip, Dana questioned where else could Matt Riddle go and make $100,000 a year and immediately after that a video of Matt Riddle in the crowd at TakeOver: Brooklyn IV was shown.
Matt Riddle is a Fightful alumni and did a number of podcasts that are still available to watch and listen to here on the site. Click here to check out the Matt Riddle section of the site.
