Matt Riddle Screams and Hollers at Your Chevy Impala

Matt Riddle vs. Falah Bahh MFPW 6/11/16 - GREAT

PAS: Bahh is an agile enormous dude who works a Yokozuna gimmick. Bahh was really great in this, he has some very fun immovable object spots, and breaks out some impressive athletic feats as well, his body press is very fast and devastating looking it has to feel like getting hit by a smart car. Riddle works much more like a traditional wrestling babyface in MFPW, with less shootstlye flourishes and he is really fun in this finding ways to use his speed and KO power to find attacks. He does this leaping guillotine with knee strikes that was immensely cool. Loved the finish too, Riddle's jumping knee was totally believable as a KO blow.

ER: Boy was this my kinda match. Fat guy, didn't overstay its welcome, fun spots, yes ma'am. Announcers push Bahh as 400-500 lb, which I don't buy for a second, but fat is fat and if they want to pretend he's bigger than the fattest era Vader then fine. And Bahh had some fun fat guy stuff, especially loved his crossbody, which Riddle sells by coming off the ropes and running into a volleyball net made of fat. He also catches Riddle doing some grappling and just dumps him with a great suplex. Bahh drops a great legdrop, too, which is essential for his type of low center of gravity fatness. Riddle's knee combos are superb and he is always so good at hitting them point of knee, super accurately, no matter if he's standing or flying recklessly off the ropes. Riddle delights further by hitting an insane swanton, floating 2/3 of the way across the ring and really waiting to tuck until just about the last minute. For the first part of the move he looked like he was on wires. Just nuts. I really loved this match. It wouldn't have taken much more for it to land on our MOTY list.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE MATT RIDDLE

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Matt Riddle Spent His Last Dollar to Buy a Sabrett

Matt Riddle v. QT Marshall MFPW 3/28/15 - GREAT

PAS: According to cagematch, this is Riddle's third match ever, and while he hasn't really developed his own style yet, he is already pretty great as a white meat babyface. I really enjoyed Marshall who was a fun CW Andersonish southern heel, nice back elbow, good looking bumping, solid bald spot, everything you would want out of a guy like that. Riddle was very arm draggy and dropkicky but everything he did looked solid and he had a great spinebuster. Really loved the finish with Riddle countering a double axe handle with a jumping knee to the face and another jumping knee for the end.

ER: We thought this project would be fun because it would give us a chance to follow along with an active career almost right from the beginning, but also really pinpoint when Riddle got good. And well, that part of the project wasn't that interesting because here we are in his third match ever, and he was already doing things that I don't see from 10 year vets. Look at the expert poise when he locks up around the 2 minute mark on the video, watch how hard he bumps a vertical suplex and then lifts up on his heels to hold his back after, watch him run into corner boots and go down like a shot, as if he expected boots to not be there. There are certain things that you just get, and boy does he seem to get them. Also I only saw one armdrag and dropkick. That's not very armdraggy or dropkicky. I'd never seen Marshall before, missed his ROH run, but I certainly would like to see more of him. I really liked his back to basics approach, loved his bumping (man did he go down for a lariat on the floor), loved his strikes, loved the way he tried to take apart Riddle's knee with those sick drop downs. I don't even know what to call them. He would catch Riddle's leg and then just drop down, snapping Riddle's shin or knee down across his own shoulder or chest. It looked awesome. I also really loved the strike exchange, and strike exchanges in indy wrestling are one of the most overdone things out there. Here Marshall throws a shot and Riddle surprises him by charging back with a rough forearm, and Riddle's knees looked great throughout, the ones from a Thai clinch, the jumping ones, really nice piece of offense.

So this was really good, and now we have to figure out what wrestler has had a better match by match #3. I don't think Mayweather is an option as Riddle didn't have the same amount of build, nor smoke and mirrors. Mayweather working Mania sure was a weird and awesome and unique situation. Okay, I looked it up and Victor Zangiev's third match was the Hashimoto match. Soooooo, okay, it's probably Zangiev. If we assume all of the Pancrase stuff was definitely shoot, then Bas Rutten's first match was the Carl Malenko one. Hiroyuki Ito debuted on the first U-Style show, had a great match and then by his third match was part of that killer Sakata match. So......okay, there are guys. But man those are some pretty impressive names to be mentioned with, this early. There also appears to be a trend with those names...

(also, this whole time I thought the Beastie Boys were saying "buy her some bread". Sabrett really isn't a product us West Coasters know much about, but man is their actual lyric much better)


COMPLETE & ACCURATE MATT RIDDLE

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