Matt Riddle talks about his experience on NXT and WWE’s two main roster brands, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.
Matt Riddle recently won his first piece of singles WWE gold when he pinned John Morrison in a Triple Threat match to become the WWE United States Champion at WWE Elimination Chamber 2021.
Riddle is a unique WWE Superstar in that he has had a genuine experience as a member of all three roster brands. Starting out as a breakout star on NXT before being drafted to Friday Night SmackDown in 2020 and finishing the year as a member of the Monday Night Raw roster.
Speaking with ViBe and Wrestling, Riddle discussed the differences between the three brands and the role that Vince McMahon plays in the main WWE programs.
ViBe and Wrestling passed along the following quote.
“From the beginning, you start training, you go to the indies and work your way up and eventually you make it to NXT. NXT is probably one of the most professional places I’ve ever worked and there was so much when I was there, they got the TV deal with USA Network. It's huge but I didn’t realize how the main roster was until I got there on SmackDown and it is a completely different monster, completely different machines with a lot of parts and pieces and then you go to Raw and you’ve got 3 hours and it is even a bigger monster… craziness.
“When you are dealing with live TV, things are going crazy, even if you plan for things not to go crazy; they get crazy sometimes because you can plan it, things happen. The big difference for me when I was on NXT the things were a bit more planned out while on the main roster everything should be planned or there is an idea but most of the time you just shoot from the hip and that is why the people need to be prepare and be professional on the main roster because anything can happen and you have to be ready and professional, you have to be ready for anything, anytime, and Vince McMahon is right there at gorilla looking at you so it’s not like: “Oh man, I hope nobody saw that” because Vince McMahon is watching closely.”
Vince McMahon is always watching the product closely and when he first saw Riddle, he told him that he thought he was a bit of a goof. To learn more about that, click here.
