Athletes - Matthew Kaye

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Matthew Kaye

	Athletes - Matthew Kaye

Matthew Kaye aka Matt Striker (born June 26, 1974 in Queens, New York) is a professional wrestler performing for World Wrestling Entertainment on the RAW brand.

Kaye should not be confused with fellow wrestler Matt Stryker.

Career

Matthew Kaye worked as a social studies teacher at Benjamin Cardozo High School in Queens, New York while becoming a wrestler. Kaye resigned after the school discovered he was constantly calling in sick due to his wrestling bookings. He had gone on a wrestling tour for Zero-One in Japan and used sick days to excuse his absence. He wrestled Kurt Angle as Matt Martel in an invitational match on the February 24, 2005 edition of World Wrestling Entertainment's SmackDown! in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After recognizing Kaye, someone reported him to the school board and it was discovered that he had been in Japan when he claimed to be sick (the person who reported Kaye is not known). In a statement, Kaye said he didn't realize sick days and personal days "were two entirely different things."

After the story broke out and was posted on news sites around the world Matt Striker made a second appearance in WWE on July 11, 2005 edition of WWE RAW from East Rutherford, New Jersey to face Kurt Angle once again. Kaye said his name was Matt Martel and that he was from New Jersey but Kurt Angle recognized him as Matt Striker, and reminded the audience that Striker was the guy in the news who got fired from teaching for being a wrestler and that Angle had defeated him before when Striker said he was from Philadelphia. Calling Striker "a liar" Angle finally decided to give him a second chance. In the 3:00 minute time limit match Angle defeated Striker for a second time, but Angle only managed to make him tap-out with 1 second left on the clock.

WWE was so impressed with Matthew's performance with Kurt Angle, they signed him to a contract on July 12, 2005.

On July 18, 2005 Striker made a third appearance for WWE in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania once again attempting to win the Olympic gold medals from Kurt Angle in his invitational, Striker this time said he was Matt Martel and he was from Philadelphia. Once again exposing him to be a "Big Liar" Kurt Angle attack and beat Striker / Martel for a third time, Martel did manage to get Kurt Angle in his Happy Monkey chokehold and held him in it for nearly two minutes.

Matt Striker made his official signed debut on an episode of Sunday Night Heat airing August 7, 2005, where he defeated Johnny Parisi.

On September 28th, 2005, Striker appeared on WWE's Byte This! webcast show and did a less-than-flattering impression of Ultimate Warrior, including numerous references to steroids. He, Grisham and Droz had several jokes at Warrior's expense, resulting in an edited version to be on WWE.com days later that takes a more light-hearted approach. This was due to Warrior releasing a paragraph-long , calling the host Todd Grisham a "queer," and frequent contributor Droz (who was left a paraplegic by a wrestling accident) a "cripple."

Matt Striker's Classroom

On October 21, 2005, Matt Striker turned heel when he walked out on his tag team partner then babyface, Shelton Benjamin in a match against Kerwin White and Nick Nemeth, only one week after Striker helped Benjamin fend off an attack from the pair. He would go on to release a promo on WWE.com refering to WWE as his school.

Striker's new heel teacher gimmick has him hosting a segment called Matt Striker's Classroom where he would insult the crowd about their family values and treat them as intellectual inferiors, the gimmick has been compared to that of Dean Douglas. Often insinuates that many people in the arena are "smoking the pot" as one of the many insults. Striker rarely wrestled a match during this time.

In Mid January, Matt Striker was at a House Show facing Lance Cade. During the match, Striker had taken a slam from Lance Cade that went array, thus dislocating his shoulder and putting him out of action for a few weeks.

On February 20, 2006 on WWE.com Unlimited, Striker announced that he was in the latest edition of GQ Magazine.

In wrestling

Nicknames

"Modern Marvel" Matt Martel (MLW)
"Hotstuff" Matt Striker (3PW)
"Macho Man" Matt Striker (3PW)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Matthew Kaye ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Matthew Kaye; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay