In response to an incident last weekend where it was alleged wrestler Matt Riddle not only no-showed a charity wrestling event for Global Wrestling Kingdom but didn't give back his deposit, the promotion issued the following statement clarifying that Ridde has now returned his deposit while providing more details on what went down from their perspective. Riddle's rebuttal is here.
"Mr Riddle has now paid back his deposit and has given us his word that he will reimburse his expenses too.
We have not made any public statement on this unfortunate situation, but we think it's important to set the record clear on Mr Riddle's claims.
His flights were booked and approved by his manager back in April. No issue was raised at the time.
We originally planned to coincidence his appearance with some seminars but his manager asked if we could share his weekend with a promoter in Paris who wanted to book him on the Saturday which we agreed to.
Unfortunately, they decided that they couldn't work with him. We did make efforts to see if we could help get him booked elsewhere but to no avail. We simply can't force promotions or gyms to work with him if they don't wish to.
After months of chasing his manager for a promised promo hyping up the event, he eventually sent us one the Wednesday prior to the show.
We wished him a safe flight on Thursday but got not response. No issue of the flight was raised.
We informed him the name of his driver on Friday morning but got no response.
Again, no issue was raised regarding his flight, nor did he let us know that he was planning on not showing up.
After his driver waited several hours at the airport for him, we asked him where he was but didn't get a reply back until Friday evening. Only then did he tell us he was unhappy with his flight and decided to take other bookings instead.
