Matt Striker Recalls Competing At WrestleMania 23, Sharing ‘Janitor’s Closet’ With ECW Originals Backstage: It’s Something I’ll Never Forget

Matt Striker reflects on WrestleMania 23 and sharing a ‘janitor’s closet’ with the ECW Originals backstage.

At WrestleMania 23, the new version of ECW would feature as part of the event, with The New Breed taking on a team of the ECW originals at the event which included Matt Striker on the side of The New Breed. While the ECW originals would come away with the victory, Striker still feels the event is one that he will never forget.

While speaking to MuscleManMalcolm in a new interview, Matt Striker reflected on being a part of the bout at WrestleMania 23, sharing how he would end up sharing a changing space with the originals backstage prior to the bout.

“It was so special for me on a multitude of levels. Wrestling is woven into the fabric of my relationship with my late father. So knowing that my dad was watching me back home in Bayside, Queens, while I was on the grandest stage of them all, I swear to you, I was 10 feet tall. But more importantly, during my time in WWE, I didn’t make a lot of friends. Shocking, I know, and I used to have to dress in closets and underneath staircases, and there were fights that went on in the ring that fans didn’t know about. There were fights that went on in the locker room that fans didn’t know about. One day I went back to my my little janitor’s closet and the door was open, and I said, ‘I guess they’re gonna jump me again. Here we go.’ I’m a kid from Queens, New York. I’ve taken my lumps. I opened the door and there were three guys standing there. One was Sabu. God rest his soul. The other was Rob Van Dam, and the third was The Sandman, and my face turned white. Because I’ll fight anyone, but you want to fight those guy? They said, ‘kid we’re not here to fight you. We’re here to dress with you. We’d rather sit with you than sit with those a-holes.’ The fact that I got to go to WrestleMania with Sandman, Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer, the fact that there is- my favorite picture is all four of them standing in the middle of the ring with their hands held high, and I am laying right on the apron just to the left, kind of hanging down, and I laid there purposefully because I knew that that picture would be taken, and I knew that I would remember seeing my friends get their WrestleMania moment, and I just wanted to be just right in the corner of it. So it’s something I’ll never forget. But it just goes back to when you know that people are real and genuine and they care about you, you connect with them, and no matter where you go and they go in the world and in life, there’s a line from your heart to their heart that can never be broken. I still have a friendship with Sandman to this day. Every time Rob and I see each other, it’s a hug. We shared something. Sabu, I think about him all the time. All the damn time. So that’s what WrestleMania meant to me. It was a moment for them.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Matt remembered Bray Wyatt. You can read more about that here.

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