Global Wrestling Kingdom in the United Kingdom has issued a statement on the situation surrounding Matt Riddle.
It was first reported on Wednesday by Cultaholic Riddle no-showed a charity event he was booked for and did not return the deposit. He then went on social media, with two separate posts, commenting on the situation. He stated his travel arrangements were unacceptable, saying it was a middle seat with no meal or baggage check in.
GWK notes Riddle’s flight were booked and approved in April by his manager and no issues were raised at the time. The promotion also included screenshots, refuting Riddle’s claims regarding the poor flight accommodations.
The promotion booked Grado at the last-minute to replace Riddle, who was scheduled to wrestle Simon Miller.
GWK’s statement is below:
**update** Mr Riddle has now paid back his deposit and has given us his word that he will reimburse his expenses too.
We have not made any public statement on this unfortunate situation, but we think it’s important to set the record clear on Mr Riddle’s claims.
His flights were booked and approved by his manager back in April. No issue was raised at the time.
We originally planned to coincidence his appearance with some seminars but his manager asked if we could share his weekend with a promoter in Paris who wanted to book him on the Saturday which we agreed to.
Unfortunately, they decided that they couldn’t work with him. We did make efforts to see if we could help get him booked elsewhere but to no avail. We simply can’t force promotions or gyms to work with him if they don’t wish to.
After months of chasing his manager for a promised promo hyping up the event, he eventually sent us one the Wednesday prior to the show.
We wished him a safe flight on Thursday but got not response. No issue of the flight was raised.
We informed him the name of his driver on Friday morning but got no response.
Again, no issue was raised regarding his flight, nor did he let us know that he was planning on not showing up.
After his driver waited several hours at the airport for him, we asked him where he was but didn’t get a reply back until Friday evening. Only then did he tell us he was unhappy with his flight and decided to take other bookings instead.
We implored him to try and get a flight over as fans had paid to see him. He was reminded again, that this was a charity event (for ‘Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide’ and ‘help 4 homeless veterans’) which was announced on our social media pages back in July.
We received no response from Mr Riddle whatsoever until yesterday afternoon – 3 days after the event.
In his many videos, he’s stated that his flights didn’t include meals. Screenshots clearly show that 2 meals were included in his flight and these screenshots were sent to him on Friday night. No seats were allocated because this is done once you check in online which Mr Riddle hadn’t done. Any issues with luggage could have been quickly sorted out by a quick message or phone call.
It is incredibly disappointing that this happened, but we would like to focus on the positive and heap massive praise on all the talent and fans who showed up on Sunday. All the fans and talent backstage were incredibly positive, and the reaction of the crowd when Grado’s music hit nearly knocked us out of our chairs. Grado truly is… the man!
