Matt Taven explains why he was backstage at AEW Dynamite
Matt Taven recently explained why he was backstage at an AEW show and talked about his past work with The Elite in ROH. Taven spoke with Wrestling Inc and you can check out the highlights below:
On being backstage at an AEW show: “I was seeing some friends. In this business, it’s sad because sometimes you’re like, ‘oh, they’re going to go here and I’m going to go there,’ and you think that you’re going to talk to people, and life catches up and you never get the chance to really see people. You’ll shoot random texts. You have to kind of almost be like, ‘I know everyone’s going to be at one place at one time, I’m going to make the effort to finally go see someone or see a couple of peeps and say hi.’
“It’s funny, you go and you try and hang out with your buddies and by the time you get home you’re on the internet and people are talking about you. I don’t know why that is so important, I guess I do know why. When you don’t even know your future it’s hard to be like, ‘please tell me what I’m going to do. Please, let me know.’ You go to try to say hi to some old friends and now everyone knows what you’re going to do next. It’s like, relax everyone.”
On working with The Elite in Ring of Honor: “They put me on the map. Being in the ring with those guys when they were so hot, did wonders for me. I remember when The Young Bucks left Ring Of Honor, I went up and thanked them as genuinely as I could,” he admitted. “Because they did everything. They changed the game in Ring Of Honor, they put me on another level. Putting me in the ring with them obviously made me so much better. Elevated my status so much from being in the ring with all those guys. I think the world of all those guys. Obviously, they know what they’re doing and they have a good thing going.”
On Jay Lethal signing with AEW: “Jay, he’s Jay Lethal, man, he’s so good. You knew he was going to end up somewhere pretty quickly. There’s a big part of me that wishes he could have been part of Final Battle this weekend. But, I was so happy for him. He’s another guy that has done so much for me. I really think the match in Vegas where me and Lethal go 60-minutes elevated me to another level. I felt confident going forward that I could do anything.
“Seeing Lethal, to be able to go out there and be on cable television and do what we all know he is capable of doing,” he said. “It’s something that you have to be nothing but happy for your friend, who has been working so hard for so long is now being able to show it on a grand stage.”
