Riddle opens up his partnerships with Pete Dunne and Randy Orton.
To kick off the year of 2020, Riddle and Pete Dunne entered the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and went on to defeat Grizzled Young Veterans (Zack Gibson & James Drake) in the tournament finals. At TakeOver: Portland, Dunne and Riddle became NXT Tag Team Champions.
Riddle guest appeared on season two of Mark Andrews’ ‘My Love Letter to Wrestling’ podcast and stated that he and Dunne initially were not supposed to win the Dusty Classic. They were told that they would advance out of the first round and lose in the second.
We weren’t supposed to, yeah [Pete Dunne & Riddle winning the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic]. Honestly, we weren’t — I didn’t even know I was teaming with Pete until they go, ‘Hey Matt, can you cut a promo saying how you and Pete met and became a team?’ And I was like, ‘We’re a team?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah’ and I made up some stuff where I was like I ran up to Pete and I was like, ‘Pete, you’re a Bruiserweight, I’m a bro, Dusty Cup, let’s do this’ and that was the promo and they shared it and the crowd went crazy…
With Pete, yeah, me and stallion Pete, that’s probably how it would go down [in real life] and then, like I said, we wrestled — I don’t even know if we were supposed to beat you guys [Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster] and then they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re actually gonna win this round and lose the next round’ and we’re like, ‘Okay’ and then the next round, they’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re actually gonna win this round too and going to the finals’ and we’re like, ‘All right…’ and I’m like — yeah, that’s what I thought and Pete’s like, ‘I’ll do it,’ you know? And then when we won it, I was pretty shocked but then I was like, ‘Okay guys, what are we doing here?’ I don’t know. It was just a lot of fun but didn’t see that coming.
Fast forward to present day and Riddle is paired with Randy Orton on-screen. They held the Raw Tag Team Titles from August 2021 until last month.
Riddle has said in past media appearances that the partnership with Orton was not supposed to last long, but he added that the plan for was Orton to turn on him on day one of their on-screen relationship.
I’ll tell you this, I guess it’s just my luck with tag teams because now I’m tagging with Randy Orton, doing the RK-Bro and bro, same thing happened. It was supposed to be a one — he was supposed to turn on me night one. Like literally, he was supposed to turn on me night one and then Vince [McMahon] and the crowd and everybody liked it so much they’re like, ‘You guys willing to see if this works?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah’ and Randy was like, ‘Yeah, we’re willing to see.’ You know, we like working with each other, we’re friendly, it’s been crazy. Randy was gone for three months, I just kept the team afloat. Always talking about Randy. They’re like, ‘Oh man, he’ll be back soon.’ I had no idea when he was coming back.
He continued to chat about the dynamic between himself and Orton. At the time of this interview, Riddle had made comments about Universal Champion Roman Reigns that Reigns did not take well. Riddle asked Orton to help him put together an apology to send to Reigns but it was not accepted.
I have and I haven’t [learned from Randy Orton]. One thing I have learned is don’t ask Randy to write an apology for you. The other day, I said some things about a gentleman that I work with. He’s on a different brand, he’s a champion, he’s a ‘chief’ one might say and I said some things he didn’t like and I told Randy, I was like, ‘Hey, I said some things I’m pretty sure he’s not happy about. What should I say? I should make this better’ and I sent Randy an apology that I wrote for this person and Randy looked at it, he’s like, ‘Nah, this is all wrong. This is what you write’ and then he sent me an apology back but there was no apology at all and it was basically like, ‘My bad.’ It was things like that but he knows this ‘chief’ better than I do so I was like, ‘Okay.’ I sent this apology. Let me just say, he did not accept it. He was not happy with that and I was like, ‘Dammit Randy. I can never ask you to apologize for anything or –’ yeah. So I’ve learned don’t ask Randy to do an apology for you.
A part of Riddle wants to have Pete Dunne come to the main roster so he can have a moment where Dunne and Orton come face-to-face and Riddle is trying to prevent the situation from blowing up.
Bro, and then part of me still wants Pete [Dunne] to come up to the main roster and I’m just like [shocked]. ‘Randy, it’s not what it looks like’ and they’re just like two serious guys looking, mean-mugging each other and I’m like, ‘No, no please. I love you both. Oh! I shouldn’t have said that. I made it worse,’ you know?
Riddle is getting an opportunity to challenge for the WWE Championship at the Elimination Chamber event in Saudi Arabia. He’ll be competing inside the Chamber structure with Seth Rollins, Austin Theory, Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles and WWE Champion Bobby Lashley.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ‘My Love Letter to Wrestling’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
