Matt Riddle At WWE Tryout Camp

Former UFC star Matt Riddle, who came up through the Ultimate Fighter, is one of many interesting names taking part in this week’s WWE tryout camp. The 29 year old is a big fan of wrestling and was always charismatic during his MMA run. He has been learning the basics at the famous Monster Factory in New Jersey and certainly has the “look” that WWE desire, at 6ft 2 and 215lbs.

“I watched ECW, WCW, WWF, I watched it all,” Riddle told MMAFighting.com. “My parents hated me. All I did was watch pro wrestling and I wrestled with a heavy bag on the trampoline. That was my childhood.”

He Tweeted the following about the tryout:

Been training hard the last couple months getting ready for something @WWENXT @WWE @4MonsterFactory @TheDannyCage pic.twitter.com/Z9RW4Wr70y

— matthew riddle (@riddletuf7) June 2, 2015

Riddle joins the likes of Tommaso Ciampa, Mikey Nichols, Shane Haste, Taeler Hendrix, Havok, Biff Busick, Johnny Gargano, Jimmy Preston, Rosie Lottalove (Andrea) and Athena.

Justin Roberts Soured On WWE Product

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts discussed how he soured on the product towards the end of his run:

Live events used to be really fun. It used to be myself, a production manager, and a road agent. We would make decisions and the shows would be great, but they became a lot more complicated in the last year-and-a-half. Writers who are so out of touch with wrestling fans and wrestling in general were making decisions, and it became really hard to show up to work knowing the product was suffering because of it.

The crowd tells you what they want. But again, Vince [McMahon] was doing what he wanted to do. And that hurt a guy like Rey and hurt Dave Bautista. Everything about it was wrong. I was hoping they would really do what’s best for business. But [the WWE] wants to show that they controlled the show, not the crowd.

Roberts put some of the blame at the door of Triple H:

Hunter is portrayed as the savior of wrestling, and people think he’ll save the business once he’s in charge. We all thought that, too, until he started running things. Paul started overseeing a bunch of divisions and one of them was live events. When he took over, our live events schedule was brutal. We’d start in one place and flew all over. Since he used to be one of the boys on the road, we thought he’d stand up and stop that, and he didn’t. The schedule got worse.

Hunter started squashing stuff that really started getting over. If you notice, it’s all about the future, and the future is NXT. But focusing on the future shouldn’t mean ignoring the present. Zack Ryder got over huge to the point to the point where the crowd was cheering for him at Madison Square Garden while The Rock was standing in the ring. Dolph Ziggler got over. Primo and Epico [now known as Los Matadores] are fantastic wrestlers, but they get lost in the shuffle. There is a glass ceiling, and anybody they don’t want to get over is squashed despite the fans strongly getting behind them. Daniel Bryan is a rare exception, despite the company fighting it over and over.

WWE Considering Cruises?

WWE is considering running cruises where fans can vacation alongside superstars with all sorts of activities and events along the way. They did a similar thing in the 90s called “Wrestle Vessel”, while WCW had their Bruise Cruises.

Kliq DVD Being Reformatted

WWE’s upcoming “The Kliq Rules” DVD and Blu-ray will no longer feature a special reunion show that was planned to air on the WWE Network. WrestlingDVDNews.com is reporting that the project is still going ahead but will just feature a typical documentary and match set.

The fan who filmed the infamous “Curtain Call” incident was interviewed for the release.