Matt Riddle's forgotten #SpeakingOut allegation corroborated by veteran wrestler
It's alleged that he entered a women's locker room, started changing, and was belligerent/combative when asked to leave.
Content warning: This post contains some descriptions of allegations of sexual assault.
One thing that is often overlooked about the #SpeakingOut movement three years ago is how much got lost in the shuffle. The amount of incredibly horrifying information that was being conveyed in a short period was overwhelming. A lot fell through the cracks.
Even though Matt Riddle, who was released from his contract by WWE on September 22nd, was probably the most high-profile wrestler accused of sexual misconduct during that blur of a week, some details that went beyond the underlying allegation were quickly forgotten. Everyone remembers Candy Cartwright’s initial sexual assault allegation against him, but they generally don’t remember some of what happened within the next day or so. That includes how Cartwright shared a screenshot of a Twitter direct message where someone else in the wrestling business claimed that they witnessed Riddle admitting to “grabbing you and pulling you into a parking lot in the middle of a show and having sex with you without asking” on a different occasion. Another thing that’s been forgotten, though, is that another misconduct allegation was tweeted about Riddle that week by a different indie wrestler. On June 19, 2020. veteran Indiana-based wrestler Thunderkitty tweeted this:
“Remember that time one of my friends/well respected veteran lady wrestler told Matt Riddle to stop changing into his 'gear' in front of everyone in a WOMEN'[‘]S locker room & leave and he got shitty to the point they were in each other's faces?” she wrote. “I remember.” (Though the tweet has long since been deleted, a few replies that are seemingly responses to the Riddle story are still live as of October 2023.)
I probably hadn’t thought of the tweet since the day it went up, but as soon as the screenshot was sent to me, I immediately remembered it. Thunderkitty declined a request to elaborate, but after asking around, I had a good idea of who the “respected veteran lady wrestler” was and where it most likely happened since gender-segregated indie locker rooms are rare. Using that information, I found a double-header that Queens of Combat did with PWX on September 17, 2016, at the National Guard Armory in Gastonia, North Carolina that fit the bill, as Thunderkitty was booked on the former and Riddle was booked on the latter. In scanning the lineups, I quickly stumbled upon who Thunderkitty was most likely referring to: Malia Hosaka, a then-29-year veteran who worked the second QOC match.
“We were all in there, our show was going on,” Hosaka recalled when asked about the story via Facebook Messenger. “I didn’t know who he was, but I was sitting with my feet propped up and eyes closed. When I opened them[,] he was on my right stripped down to his underwear and I got mad at the lack of respect from today’s generation. For him to come into the locker room to change while the women had the room[,] and to strip down and change was disrespectful. There was a bathroom down the hall that fans couldn’t get to that he could have used. [In m]y generation[,] the men and women respected each other enough to at least ask if it was ok or to ask for privacy. It pissed me off[,] and then his attitude that he had underwear on and that it wasn’t a big deal pissed me off more[,] so I told him how I felt about the lack of respect.”
Hosaka added that she recalled Riddle calling her a “bitch,” possibly something to the effect of saying that she “didn’t need to be such a bitch about it,” and showed no remorse.
“The PWX thing wasn't even an incident[,]” claimed Riddle when reached for comment via text message. “[T]here was only one locker room (which isn't uncommon on the indies unfortunately) [and] the promoter told me to change in there[,] so I did. Malia confronted me on my way out, I explained that the promoter told me to go change in there and she talked to the promoter and that was the end of it.”
According to sources familiar with how the shows were run, though, this could not have happened the way that Riddle described it. In particular, it was made clear that PWX always had two locker rooms if there were women on the show, particularly at the venue in question, which had plenty of spare rooms. It was also stressed that even if a singular locker room for the QOC show was repurposed as the men’s locker room for the PWX show, all of the men on the PWX show were told not to enter the space until all of the women had cleared out.
It was also noted by the same sources that Riddle would have had no reason to change into his gear at any point when the all-women’s show was ongoing. According to the Eventbrite page for the doubleheader, which was sold as a single ticket granting access to both shows, QOC started at 4:00 p.m. ET and would have been over by 6:00 p.m. (the doors open time for PWX), while PWX had a 7:00 p.m. bell time.
Thunderkitty’s story wasn’t the only thing about Riddle that was tweeted that day and would be deleted pretty swiftly. Also on June 19, 2020, a friend of his, who everyone knows as “Abby the Butcher,” claimed to be driving the van during the trip where Candy Cartwright alleged that Riddle sexually assaulted her. Not only that, but he claimed that in this capacity, he could definitively state that the allegation was false:
"As the driver of the van, and someone familiar with the relationship, I can wholeheartedly say that the accusations against Matt Riddle are completely false," wrote “Abby.” This would be cited by some Riddle defenders in Reddit comments, but “Abby” quickly deleted it shortly after it started getting replies.
It stands to reason that he deleted the tweet because he wasn’t the driver, Michigan indie promoter, photographer, and videographer Joe Ranta was. That fact came out in the eventual lawsuit, with both Riddle and Ranta affirming under oath that Ranta was the driver in affidavits that were filed with the court. “Abby” doesn’t put his real name out there at all, but he’s based out of New York, Ranta is based out of Michigan, and they have separate Facebook and Twitter pages with photos that show that they’re two completely different people.
“In regards to my friend Abby driving the van, he's driven me and others on multiple occasions/loops in the north east [sic] when I was on the indies [and] even in WWE,” wrote Riddle when asked for comment. (“Abby” didn’t respond to tweets asking about it.) “[W]hen he realized she was talking about a different van ride/loop in the Midwest[,] he realized it and took his tweet down.” Riddle did not explain why Abby would have thought that he would have been the driver for a van ride in May 2018, the month that Cartwright specifically named as being when the trip took place. His only northeast booking that month was a one-off for Beyond Wrestling in Worcester, Massachusetts, not a loop where he would have needed the services of a driver beyond what the promoter could have provided.
All of this only scratches the surface of what’s been alleged and/or revealed about Riddle, though. Riddle’s lawyer claimed that Cartwright had been “cyberstalking” him, something that would theoretically leave a long trail of evidence if she had genuinely stalked him. However, as reported here in detail three years ago, when Riddle tried to get a restraining order against her, the judge was skeptical enough to not grant him even a temporary restraining order, and seemingly with good reason. Riddle’s evidence turned out to consist of a few text messages that didn’t show stalking or have onscreen date stamps, as well as tweets that also didn’t show stalking. (And one of those tweets was “redacted” with a piece of paper to make it look like a different, deleted tweet.) Riddle withdrew the petition 36 hours before a hearing where, if he lost, he would have been held liable for monetary damages against Cartwright.
That’s to say nothing of the various additional stories of Riddle being abusive to other women he’s been in relationships with. Or Riddle falsely promising on WWE’s behalf as part of the child custody agreement in his divorce that the company would send his ex-wife “the results of his routine lab testing,” which resulted in her trying to hold him in contempt of court. (That came not long after she tried to hold him in contempt for trying to drain their joint bank accounts.) Taken together, it was puzzling that WWE held onto Riddle, especially once he wasn’t getting a significant push anymore and tag team partner Randy Orton was shelved indefinitely by a career-threatening back injury.