Matt Riviera

Matt Riviera was born on May 18, 1983, in Russellville, Arkansas. At the age of 12 after coming across a television program, WCW Worldwide, Matt began his love for professional wrestling after watching Dick Slater wrestle. Pro wrestling's blend of physicality and theatrics appealed to him and he soon became passionate about professional wrestling. After being told at the age of 15 that he was too young to legally being training as a professional wrestler, Riviera began doing everything he could to get his foot in the door of the wrestling business such as creating wrestling programs. This included writing articles and taking photographs. He also began his first foray into promoting professional wrestling events at the age of 17 after meeting his mentor, wrestling trainer and promoter Bill Ash. He began promoting wrestling events under the name of Global Pro Wrestling. Once he finally began to train to become a Professional wrestler, he discovered that the physicality it takes to be a pro wrestler might be too much for him. He quit wrestling school on three occasions. However, at age 21, Riviera stuck with wrestling as he trained for six months as well as attended wrestling school for four months. Matt Riviera also obtained a college degree in broadcast journalism, graduating from Harding University out of Searcy, Arkansas in 2006.Matt Riviera had his first professional wrestling match in 2001 for the Arkansas Association of Wrestling by teaming with Running Wolf to take on the team of Frank Thornton and "Big" Wes Jones. Matt would go on to wrestle for various promotions throughout Arkansas and expanded to many other states and promotions. While wrestling, he was still involved in promoting wrestling events, as well as beginning college. Riviera promoted Global Pro Wrestling, which after a name change, became Traditional Championship Wrestling. Traditional Championship Wrestling was able to secure a national cable deal in 2013 with Cox Sports Television that would allow people all over the country to see Riviera and other TCW stars perform weekly. After TCW folded in 2014, Matt would then move on to focus more on his own in-ring career.

In 2005, Matt Riviera won his first professional wrestling championship while competing for Arkansas Wrestling Entertainment (AWE) by winning the AWE International Heavyweight Championship. He won this title by winning a tournament, last defeating Frank Thornton.

In 2009, Matt Riviera further solidified his status as one of Arkansas' premier athletes when he won the Pro Wrestling Arkansas Heavyweight Championship. He would also go on to win the PWA Tag Team Championship the same year, with his partner Johnny Morton.

TCW is the promotion where Matt Riviera has wrestled, as well as promoted. Started as Global Pro Wrestling, it was renamed as Traditional Championship Wrestling in 2009. As a promoter, Riviera took a local wrestling show and expanded it to an hour long show that was available to watch throughout the United States. As a wrestler, Riviera has won the TCW Heavyweight Championship as well as multiple tag team championships with various partners such as Jeff Jett, as Reckage & Romance; with Tim Storm as the Natural State Connection; with Greg Anthony as The Empire; and with Jerry Lawler. However, as TCW folded, Riviera began to focus more on his in-ring career and less on promoting.