After leaving the WWE in 2014, the former Evan Bourne had his shares of ups and downs while traveling the world with his newfound international fame. Coming back from a motorcycle accident that had him sidelined for over a year in 2012, Matt Sydal would find himself released about a year after coming back to the squared circle, and it would be on the independents and internationally that Sydal would find a more technical side to his style. All while adapting to how his foot and movement had been altered forever following the 2012 accident. Enter AEW.
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Matt Sydal Is All Elite
Fast Forward to 2021, a little over a year after Sydal would make his debut for All Elite Wrestling at their All Out 2020 event, and Matt Sydal is quietly having an impressive career resurgence. He has been able to fulfill his desire of teaming up with his brother Mike Sydal in a tag team, and doing so on television, while also having notable single showings against some of the biggest stars the company has to offer from Kenny Omega and CM Punk, to a debuting Andrade El Idolo. Even with the Andrade match getting mixed reactions online, and much of the Omega storyline taking place off of TV on AEW Dark, it’s hard to look at the most recent match against CM Punk and not think that Sydal is as good as he has ever been.
The argument can be made that, outside of slipping off of the top rope during a shooting star splash in his initial Casino Battle Royale debut, Sydal has done nothing but quietly string together stellar performances. Sydal has most recently been teaming with Dante Martin, standout highflyer for AEW that has had tons of momentum as of late, but even with his brother Mike, who might not get the fanfare of a Dante Martin, the two had one of the best tag matches on Dynamite this year not featuring the Young Bucks when they unsuccessfully challenged FTR. An easy match to forget about in the very stacked AEW tag division, but one that successfully and immediately followed Young Bucks vs Santana and Ortiz on that night and kept the crowd engaged. AEW recently ran this match back, but with Dante Martin in place of Mike Sydal, and with similar results.
How Matt Sydal Ended Up In AEW
Sydal is undoubtedly a modern-day journeyman, he got his start in IWA:MS in 2003, and made his name on smaller independents before finding a home in Ring Of Honor. Before being signed by the WWE, Matt had already been on television in Japan for the Dragon Gate promotion, and in America for MTV’s spectacular disaster known as Wrestling Society X. Once in WWE, he made a name for himself with plenty of memorable moments with the likes of Chris Jericho and Randy Orton just to name a few, but would eventually part ways with the corporate juggernaut after some Injuries and some wellness violations (allegedly for marijuana). From there he would return to Japan for Dragon Gate and New Japan before being sent home from the country in 2016 after an arrest for liquid cannabis that saw him sit in a Japanese detention center for over a month.
Then stuck in the states, Sydal would find some success recreating his image in PWG, Ring of Honor, as well as appearances in Impact wrestling and other smaller Independents. During his Impact run he would finally hold the X-Division championship fourteen years after his first appearance in the no-limits X-Division. Despite staying very busy, even after being shut out of Japan, fans couldn’t help but be elated when Sydal showed up as a surprise in an AEW ring, and was apparently sticking around.
ROH and PWG were essential in the reinvention of Matt Sydal, being a home for him when he first returned to the indies, and even more so once Japanese bookings were out of the question. The development of his third eye mentality and the more technical side of his in-ring style would play a big part in preparing Sydal for his most recent run on AEW Television. Fans who had kept up with his time in between WWE and AEW were treated to a new side of Sydal and were able to watch Matt continue to get better despite already being in the business for a decade and a half.
With a record of 21-10 as of this writing, Sydal has a better win/loss ratio than the average AEW viewer may have noticed. When Sydal has lost, it has been to some of the biggest names in the company and almost exclusively on TV. Among these wins and losses has been some of the better wrestling Sydal has done on such a big stage, and somehow 20 years into the game Sydal not only hasn’t lost a step, but continues to get better. Who would have thought that among such younger names as Darby Allin, Daniel Garcia, and Powerhouse Hobbes, it would be Sydal that came across as the person who most pushed Punk to his limits during his return tour?
