Matt Riddle Quotes

When I was in England, I did a lot of wrestling and moves. Over here, they were like, 'You don't need to do that much. Save your body. Become an entertainer rather than a wrestler.' And I wasn't used to wrestling on TV and in front of huge crowds, so it was a big adjustment.

We use wrestling moves to tell a story but it boils down to the character and being able to bring either love or hate out of your crowd.

There's so many great wrestlers in this sport who could probably work circles around me and it's amazing to see that, but I love being the kind of character who can take you on a roller coaster, make you smile and laugh.

I get a lot of influence from pro wrestling. People are like, 'Oh, it's fake.' But it's not about whether the guy wins or loses, it's about how he entertains you the whole time you're watching.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Being a pro wrestler can be kind of difficult sometimes. We have a perception about what we do - and I totally understand the perception, because we're a weekly episodic program, and we're having fun all the time, so people think that's kind of the most talented thing I could do.

As you evolve, you learn that wrestling is not necessarily about stunts or spots. You need to go out and show the audience that they can love you for the persona you are - not because of the risk you're willing to take or the jeopardy you're willing to put your body in.

It doesn't matter if you're the best wrestler in the world and can do every move perfectly; if you don't connect with the crowd or sell well or have good promos, nobody cares.

Wrestling is to go out there and perform and make people believe that either of the performers in the ring can win - either the bad guy or the good guy.

I've always liked being on the performance end of it. I've come up with different ideas, but as far as being a creative writer, I'm not sure about that. I've always liked the performance end of it and wrestling, getting in the ring in front of a live crowd.

I look at sports entertainment/professional wrestling, whichever you want to call it, I look at it as never done. You're never done learning or getting better or listening, and never done honing your skill.

The cool thing about WWE is it's like entertainment boot camp. You're performing in front of a live audience, a different audience every night. You're doing promos in the ring. You're doing talking segments in the back. You're wrestling. You're performing. It's everything all rolled into one.

Without talent, I don't care how funny the writers are or how many comedy lines they come up, without wrestlers you can't have a wrestling program.

As a professional wrestler in the position I am in, I would rather have people remember my matches for an emotion or for a certain thought it evoked when they saw it.

One of the reasons wrestling works is because it allows people to suspend their disbelief. They may know it's not real, but if it's done well enough, they get sucked into it emotionally. And that's why they watch.

People think our business is this completely fictional world of big guys in tight clothes with no brains. That's not the way it is; this is a psychology-driven business. You have to take people on an emotional ride without using words.

Johnny Valentine's the one who said, 'I can't make them believe that wrestling is real, but I can make them believe I'm real.' It would take him forever because he was just stinkingly boring for 30 minutes of the 40-minute match, but he would let people hit him as hard as they could, and he would hit people as hard as he could.

I'm out there to produce the best content - The most creative content I can do and express myself through wrestling.

I found out was, by the rhythm of my chewing, how I chewed fast, slow or what have you, I could tell the audience what my character was thinking and feeling.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

We really do have a lot of personality in WWE. You have to, to be in this job. You showcase a lot of personality.

Actors have to make you believe that it's happening for the first time and all that jazz and make it human and at the same time entertain you.

Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.

It's like fiction - the fact that somebody's telling you a story about people who didn't exist doesn't make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind. You go through heavy emotional responses to these stories, and wrestling is a similar thing - but it's happening in real space.

I assume the body language no matter what in doing voiceover. There is a transformative aspect.