Exclusive: Matt Riddle Says UFC And Joe Silva Lied To Him
Fightful.com's Matt Riddle is never one to shy away about his true feelings, particularly as it pertains about the UFC.
Riddle was fired off of what he calls a four fight winning streak, although two of those wins were overturned after he tested positive for marijuana. Even before that, the standout pro wrestler says that the UFC — namely Joe Silva — lied to him throughout his run. On last week's edition of Riddle's Fightful.com Podcast (which you can see above), he elaborated.
“They offered me the fight against Che Mills, they go ‘we want you to fight Che Mills in February in London,’ I go ‘I would love to fight Che Mills, I do not want to go to London,’ I go ‘Last time I was in England they spit on me, they called me a c***sucker,’ it was awful, I don’t want to do it, the food’s horrible, the travel’s horrible, everything’s horrible, don’t want to do it. They go, ‘If you do this, we’ll give you a fight with Dan Hardy if you win.’ ‘Okay, send me the contract, I’ll go to London.’ Literally, I didn’t hesitate, I was like ‘Okay, you said what you had to say to get me to take this fight,’ and I knew a fight with Dan Hardy would put me over, you know? So I agreed to that. Literally three weeks prior to the Che Mills fight , Dan Hardy signs a contract to fight Matt Brown, three months after my fight with Che Mills. And you know how Dan Hardy is, if he’s gonna fight Matt Brown three months later, he’s not gonna fight for another six months, because he was getting paid really good. So that would have been nine months before I fought and I have three kids. F*ck that, bro. I flipped out. I flipped out. I was like ‘You really lied to me to get me to sign a contract. You lied to me to get me to do what you wanted to do, that’s bullsh*t.’”
The former welterweight also says that the UFC tried to keep him from speaking out in regards to fighters using testosterone replacement therapy, even though it was banned a short time later.
“I do interviews like this and they’re like, ‘You can’t use medical marijuana because it’s a performance enhancing drug, but other fighters can use testosterone replacement therapy,’ and I’m like ‘Does that make sense?’ and they’re like ‘No,’ I go ‘I didn’t think so,’ and then I get yelled at by the lawyer Michael Mersch, like ‘Don’t talk about that stuff.’ And then, when I won my fight against Che Mills, I’m walking to the back and I’m like ‘Hey do you guys need me for the post-fight conference?,’ and they go ‘No,’ and I mean I was on the Main Card fighting Che Mills at a UFC Fight Night, and they’re like ‘No, we don’t need you,’ and then like three days later, ‘You’re fired.’”
Riddle returned to the UK to wrestle Will Ospreay this weekend. He met the area with mixed results during his UFC career, and knows why.
“The first time I fought in London–I’m way better than Nick Osipczak, but I was jetlagged, I was sick, the weight cut, everything that could’ve went wrong went extremely wrong for that fight, and I didn’t train because I didn’t think Nick Osipczak could fight at all, and I know that was reckless because he’s in the UFC, but hey, I was on a three fight win streak and I literally thought ‘This guy can’t fight,’ and I was humbled, I got spit on, called nasty names and got beat up and after that it never happened since. I think they thought I was gonna lose, and they felt they were probably going to be able to promote Che, because Che Mills was the favorite to win that fight.”
You can see Matt Riddle's edition of the Fightful.com Podcast weekly, and gain early access to the show by registering for free at Fightful.com
