MMA Junkie ran their weekly interview with recently eliminated Ultimate Fighter, Matt Riddle, earlier this week. While most of the interview is pretty standard; the laughing, the joking, and a couple curse words here and there, there’s a couple of interesting tidbits worthy of reading.
Apparently Riddle, who trained at Team Russel Jiu-Jitsu before moving to Rat Pack Fighting Systems where he was currently training, had some news to share:
I’m probably going to train with (fellow castmate Mike) Dolce and all those guys at Team Quest North and then with Rampage at Big Bear (Calif.) with the high altitude and stuff to get ready for my fight… Rampage and I got along very well. I got along with Juanito, too, and all the coaches. They still call me to see what I’m doing.
The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise if you think about it. Riddle really needs to be training with other top caliber fighters like his friend from Team Quest and ex-IFL fighter, Mike Dolce along with Rampage and his friends at Big Bear. The surprise comes at how Riddle hints about his treatment from his friends at Rat Pack Fighting Systems.
Here’s the first part of the quote:
I don’t know what the deal is with the place I’ve been at here. I’ve been here like four months, and all the sudden I’m like their poster boy, but it’s about to end. I’m having a meeting tonight, and I don’t care if you put this in there, but I’m telling him off. It’s like they’re trying to use me. Yeah, it’s probably smart on their part because it puts them on the map, but they could have gone about it differently. I feel like I’m being taking advantage of, and I don’t like that.
Wow, talk about burning some bridges. While I don’t know the extent of the mistreatment that Riddle apparently suffered, it’s always discouraging to hear a fighter publically issuing a negative comment about a current or past fight camp before resolving the issue privately.
You can read the rest of the interview here to learn about Riddle’s finale fight on June 21st along with some thoughts about his knockout of Dan Simmler.
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I do still love MMA and have...
May 4th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Brandt,
You know us at Rat Pack quite well. That being the case, you should know that Riddle suffered no “mistreatment” at the hands of his friends here. Quite the contrary. We supported him both in and out of the gym during his three tournament wins, his one MMA fight and his TUF tryout process.
Apparently, he was angry with me personally at the time of his comment regarding the way the premier party was promoted and a few other items. It had nothing to do with the gym or our guys. It was a personal dig at me which, while regretable and unfortunate, should have no reflection on Rat Pack.
We loved Matt and treated him like family while he was with us (which, by the way was for 10 months not 4) and continue to wish him well in his endeavors.
We always knew he’d move on to greener pastuers but were certainly disappointed in the way he chose to go out.
Hate the sin, but love the sinner. We wish him well and know he’ll be a star and we were glad to be a part of the process.
May 4th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Nick,
Thanks for clearing up some of the confusion regarding the whole situation. I was hoping to learn more from Matt about his departure from Rat Pack and apparently there was an audio interview from a paid wrestling/MMA site (I forget the site, the interview was played for me) and he explained that he basically needed to train with other professionals to start improving all aspects of his game. Can’t blame him there.
Hopefully everything gets cleaned up because I’m sure the guys and gals at Rat Pack would like to see Matt come back once in a while.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Matt’s leaving for a bigger camp was anticipated and was always part of the plan.
We regret the way he left, not his leaving. We continue to wish him well though and know he will be a star.