Matt Taven Talks ROH Best in the World, NJPW, and the Conspiracy

Matt Taven joined us to discuss the upcoming ROH Best in the World Pay-Per-View, his career, and the conspiracy to keep him from the ROH World Championship.

ROH Best in the World can be viewed on Pay-Per-View and through HonorClub (free for all VIP members, and 50% off for all regular members) on June 29th at 9 p.m. ET. For more information about HonorClub, including how to subscribe, head here. Matt Taven and the rest of the Kingdom will be wrestling Los Ingobernables de Japon for the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championships.

Matt Taven talks His Wrestling Fandom and Early Career

Josiah MacDonald: Hi Matt, thanks for taking the time out of your day for this interview.

Matt Taven: Thanks for having me!

JMD: A few weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing Vinny Marseglia. He’s a fellow member of The Kingdom, and he mentioned that you both came up through the same training school. Could you tell us if you were a wrestling fan growing up, and about your early career and how you got your start?

MT: I was a wrestling fan from when I was 5 or 6 years old. The first time wrestling really caught my attention was when my great uncle Joe was over, and he wanted to watch wrestling. We found it on the TV, and one of the first things I saw was The Ultimate Warrior. I remembered all the colors, the lights, and the pageantry, and it was what I wanted to do. I remember going from the cartoon phase with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right into wrestling. I’ve been a fan my entire life.

It was one of those things where my parents weren’t the biggest wrestling fans. They never really understood the wrestling thing. Obviously, they’re big supporters of me now. I remember begging my parents to go to a show at the Boston Garden, and afterwards they would say, “You really like this? You want to go back to this?” So, it was one of those things that was always there growing up. Any time I talked about wanting to be a pro wrestler, my dad would say, “You’re going to go to college.”

I always thought about it and wondered about it, and it wasn’t until after I graduated that it happened. When I was working in the front office of Kraft Sports Group for the New England Patriots, one of my buddies that I did backyard wrestling with was doing indie wrestling in Massachusetts, and I thought “Yeah, I can do this. I’m better than all these guys!” First day, you hit the ring, and you’re like, “Oh! That’s what this is really like?” I just remember that it was one of those things I wanted to do since I was a kid, and I just decided to jump in with two feet and joined the circus.

The first time I met Vinny was probably that first day of training. I’ve known him since day one. I started dipping my toes in independent wrestling, and someone told me to train with Spike Dudley. When the option was given to me and Vinny, we jumped on it. We always had each other in class, and after class we’d do the mark things we wanted to do growing up. After class, we’d say, “Do you want to try the Swanton off the top?” Me and Vinny have loved wrestling forever and always wanted to do it. We found our calling. We had no idea what the outcome would be, and our characters have changed so much, but it was obvious that me, him, Jimmy Preston, and a couple of other guys training with Spike Dudley definitely had a future in wrestling.

JMD: Vinny told us the training with Spike was really great and highly recommended it.

MT: You know Spike Dudley the character, but you didn’t know Spike Dudley the human or what his wrestling knowledge is. You think you’re smart to wrestling, and you get there, and you find out that Spike knows everything about wrestling, and I knew nothing. It was a big reality check. Spike is so talented. I wish people knew how great Spike Dudley is. He was a fantastic trainer. It was through Spike that I met a lot of people, including Mike Bennett, who had a big influence on my career. You knew you were going in the right direction training with Spike. All the guys who stuck around and learned under Spike Dudley speaks for itself with the type of success they had.