Matt Taven would rather have Vincent on his side, than against him.
Before emerging in IMPACT Wrestling this year, Matt Taven and Vincent were former tag team partners in Ring of Honor. Collectively as The Kingdom, Taven and Vincent quickly climbed the rankings of ROH, becoming Six Man Tag Team Champions, alongside TK O’Ryan. Eventually, Vincent, formerly Vinny Marseglia, would turn on his former partner, as the two would engage in a brutal rivalry in the months following.
Now, the two find themselves back in the same corner in IMPACT Wrestling as a part of Honor No More. In speaking with WrestleZone’s own Bill Pritchard, Matt Taven opened up about re-aligning with Vincent.
“It was definitely different,” he admitted. “But Vinny and I–Vincent and I have had such a long history together. It was kind of just another chapter. Vincent is one of the first people that I’ve ever met in wrestling, and we came up together in the northeast area. We’re both trained under Spike Dudley. We went to the same training school and really came up together.”
“When we had the second version of The Kingdom come in and Vincent and I found ourselves tag partners for the next three and a half years, it was wild for the next two years, feuding that ultimately led to the cage match in Philadelphia. But after that, when everything kind of turned topsy turvy, it was one of those situations where it’s like when you don’t know what’s going to happen next and you have to make a deal with the devil, you rather do it with the devil you know than the devil you don’t. I know Vincent very well, and even though the guy’s cut me with an axe at one point, I know how deadly he can be, and I’d rather have him on my side than against me.”
Matt Taven found much success in Ring of Honor, becoming ROH World Champion, Television Champion, and multiple tag team titles. Taven continued on to reflect on his title respective reigns and how those experiences shaped his current work in NWA and IMPACT.
“As the [ROH] World Champion, I always say that my reign, I feel like, was a little under appreciated,” Taven noted, “because there are some classic matches in there that I think if people went back and watch that they were truly enjoy myself and Alex Shelley, myself and Jay Lethal and Kenny King actually, and even myself and RUSH, where the night that change the title changed hands was a great match as well. But it’s one of those things where, I look back, especially on our last Ring of Honor reign and how that kind of came to an end and how that kind of was swept under the rug with all the other things that were going on with Ring of Honor in general.”
“So it seems like we won this title and it wasn’t what everyone was talking about. Everyone was talking about the unknown future of Ring of Honor. So it was like we had this second title reign that happened five years after we had separated for the first time, and we came back together and we won. But it just didn’t have the same feeling with the dark cloud that was over, or the uncertainty I should say, that was over everyone’s head at the time. So for us to now be the IMPACT champions, it’s almost like we’re making up for two title reigns. We’ve got this one that we’re trying to prove in a new company, and we’re making up for the last one that ended against the Briscoe Briscoes at Final Battle.”
“Just because we feel like we never really had an opportunity to kind of show what we were about at that point. We had gotten back together, and we felt like we were better than ever. And before you knew it, everything was moving and shifting with Ring of Honor. Then it took a little time for us to kind of get our footing here and impact. But I think we’re showing that we’re the best unit of the OGK than we’ve ever been. I also think that the way that we lost the tag team titles happening at Final Battle was kind of, just the moment in general, was overshadowed by the. Impending uncertainty with Ring of Honor. I truly think that’s one of the best matches to happen in a long, long time, us versus the Briscoes.”
“Since that day, it feels like everywhere we’ve gone, whether it’s IMPACT or NWA, we’ve had something to prove that we came back with a purpose. We came back for a reason. We came back because we’re we think we’re better as a team now than we’ve ever been. We felt like we started to prove that the last year, but now we’re going to make up for the entire time that–or the missed opportunity. We felt like we didn’t have to really prove that to everyone. We’re going to do that as the IMPACT champions.”
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