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

Credit: RING OF HONOR/James Musselwhite

It’s a Conspiracy! Matt Taven on Not Getting His ROH World Title Shot

Josiah MacDonald: The Kingdom has been the victim of a conspiracy as of late. Would you care to comment on this, and address the ROH World Champion, Dalton Castle?

Matt Taven: The ROH World Champion? Huh. I seem to think that I’m the real ROH World Champion, because I am the #1 contender to the world title. For some reason I still haven’t gotten my title shot. It’s not even happening on pay-per-view. Two other Melvin’s are getting the shot I deserve on pay-per-view. It goes back to TK getting hurt and coming back. We don’t get our championship rematch (for the ROH Six-Man Tag Team titles)? Have you ever heard that happening in history?

JMD: No, I have not.

MT: I’ve never heard of a champion, other than one getting up and leaving the territory, that didn’t get his championship rematch. We’re the first people ever for that to happen to. It took a year before we finally got the rematch we deserved. Actually, on the same day, I was supposed to finally get my shot at the ROH World Title. A title that I only had 2 shots at in 5 years, both matches with interference, but who’s counting? Ring of Honor never did anything about that.

Now I finally get a shot in my home town, drawing the biggest house that ROH has ever had in Lowell, bigger than The Bucks vs. The Addiction vs. the Motor City Machine Guns in Ladder Wars, and I don’t get the title shot I deserve? It’s mind boggling to me. The fact is that it still hasn’t happened, that it hasn’t been made up to me. I’m sitting here as the #1 contender. Every title they have given me a chance to win, here, in New Japan or Mexico, I have won. They refuse to give me an actual shot at the title I deserve the most.

JMD: I remember that show in Lowell, and you ended up winning the ROH Six-Man Tag Titles for a second time. I’m also perplexed by ROH not giving you the title shot.

MT: It was quite an accomplishment to win the Six-Man Tag Titles, and in our minds, if TK never got hurt, we never would have lost them. But, two wrongs don’t make a right. They screwed us out of a title shot for a full year, and now we finally get it. But they screw me out of a World title shot. Did you just give me the Six-Man title shot to appease me? They knew I was going to win it the whole time, but they made me sit and wait until a time like this when I deserve a world title match. It’s very perplexing. It’s almost a conspiracy.