AEW Star Addresses Potentially Joining Partner In WWE

A current AEW star has weighed up the possibility of making a return to WWE following his release in June 2021.

Previously known to WWE fans as Buddy Murphy, he’s now more familiar to AEW fans as Hounds of Hell member Buddy Matthews.

Currently sidelined with an injury suffered during AEW Grand Slam Australia, Matthews recently sat down with Chris Van Vliet for a new interview.

Chris Van Vliet asked Matthews about the possibility of a return to WWE during the Insight interview, with the AEW star revealing he’d love to be there with Rhea Ripley, his real-life-wife, saying:

“I think that’s the big question. So I would love to do something with her (Rhea Ripley). I think that story and our chemistry, just the way we are, would be good television.

“That’s definitely something, an itch I’d like to scratch. But the good thing about her in WWE and me and AEW and us both being in the business is that I would never want, and I don’t think I’d ever get there, I’d never want to be jealous, or get jealous of her in her position.”

Matthews would go on to describe Ripley as the ‘John Cena of women’ before contemplating what could happen to him and the benefits of currently being in different companies, stating:

“She’s a megastar, she’s John Cena of women right now, and if I’m lowered, let’s just say I’m doing enhancement matches or whatever. I don’t want to be like, well, you’re doing that, you get this special treatment, and I get this and then kind of resent her for the position.

“Like I said, I don’t think it would ever happen, but I wouldn’t even want that to be an option.

“Then also, if something happens at work, I want her to be able to vent to me without me going, ‘Yeah, no, but this is how you play that game.’ I can kind of be that in the other in the back seat, go, Yeah, I understand what you’re talking about, you know you deserve whatever, or you know you should do it like this, or whatever, or just let her rant, and I can do the same to her. I can say I did this and did this.

“We can talk about the positives. We talk about the negatives. What upsets us and all, and it’s just like we’re on the same team. It would never become a competition.”

Matthews was previously a member of the House of Black which effectively dissolved with the AEW departure of Malakai Black.

Black returned to WWE on the April 25, 2025, episode of SmackDown, reverting to his Aleister Black name.

Alongside Brody King, Black and Matthews held the AEW World Trios Championship.

Transcript from chrisvanvliet.com.