WWE: Why have Punishment Martinez lose to Matt Riddle in his debut on NXT

On the most recent episode of NXT, we would see another former Ring of Honor superstar make his debut. The WWE/NXT crowd was introduced to Punishment Martinez. While it was great to see him on an NXT stage, it did come by losing to Matt Riddle. What makes there match even more interesting is that it was a short three- minute match. When Martinez loss the match, twitter exploded. People thought that the WWE was doing a disservice to the former Ring of Honor superstar.

Bully Ray of Busted Open presented an interesting theory on the Thursday edition of Busted Open. The theory that he had was that the WWE made Punishment Martinez look bad as a way to get back at ROH. In case you didn’t know, Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling have sold out Madison Square Garden for a joint show during WrestleMania weekend. The WWE was highly pissed off by this move because they have been the only major wrestling promotion to hold shows at MSG. At first they were able to block the move, but ROH decided to go this route instead. While that might be the case, I am not sold on that.

My theory was they wanted to give Matt Riddle an impressive win. While the win did come at the expense of Punishment Martinez, there is still time for him to rebound. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on how NXT needs to go to two hours a week. By now adding Punishment Martinez to the list, it furthers the reason for this move. It will be very tough to have Triple H and company push guys like Matt Riddle, Punishment Martinez, Keith Lee, and EC3 to name a few.

NXT airs on the WWE network every Wednesday night. Busted Open airs Monday through Friday from 9pm to 12pm on the Fight Channel (#93).

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