Matt Tremont On Why He Retired From Wrestling Last Year

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Matt Tremont spoke about why he retired from wrestling last year and how he plans to use it as a teaching moment to his students. Tremont will wrestle against Atsushi Onita this weekend in a Double Hell Deathmatch at H20 Wrestling Destiny: Onita vs. Tremont. Here are highlights:

On deciding to retire last year: “There was a whole lot behind it. There were many many variables and reasons of why I wanted to step away for the work and the shoot of it. Was the body beat up? Yeah. I needed a little bit of a break mentally and physically. I don’t mind saying it for the first time, a lot of it had to do with real life. That was in the heart of the pandemic, and I was four months behind in rent because we were running live shows but we could only put 25 to 50 people in the building at the time. Still took care of all the boys every show, and while we continued to struggle behind the scenes and going into Extravaganza weekend last October, I was struggling. It was a couple things, it was to pay tribute to our friend Danny Havoc that passed, and this was a big event and a big weekend that had a lot of eyes on it. The last deciding factor of me retiring was presenting myself with the idea of, this weekend is already big but it needs a match that’s going to sell more tickets. And I said, if I retire and put myself in that position, then it’s going to do good business. And I don’t mind stepping away and have more time behind the scenes, and be able to take care of my body and just to have more time to do a lot of things. I use it now as a teaching example with my students, that sacrifice part. I sacrificed my own career so I know we could make money that weekend, so I can keep this building and this company going a year ago. That was the biggest reason. That is the first time I really ever put that out there, and now a year later, we’re here. And then once I got into retirement, I was happy, content, and I had no plans, no intentions of coming back. Did I think I would ever wrestle again? One hundred. But not within a year, and in March is when Onita touched base and this process started, and it’s been crazy.”

On H20 running during the pandemic: “As much as the pandemic hurt us business-wise, it was a blessing in disguise because there was only a handful of companies running. It was really just us, H20, GCW, ICW, and some others, and with the platform with IWTV, we grew so much last year during a worldwide pandemic that has put us in the position we are in today. As much as it sucked, it was a blessing in disguise. And I’m 32 and I’m ready to rock and roll and come back. I got full in run me now.”