Matt Taven

Matthew Marinelli (born March 20, 1985), known by his ring name, Matt Taven, is an American professional wrestler and wrestling trainer, who wrestles for All Elite Wrestling and its sister promotion, Ring of Honor (ROH), where he is one-half of the current ROH World Tag Team Champions with Mike Bennett in their third reign.

Taven and Bennett are also members of the Undisputed Kingdom stable.

Taven is best known for his work with ROH as a member of The Kingdom.

During his tenure in ROH he held the ROH World Championship, ROH World Television Championship, ROH World Tag Team Championship, and ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship.

Taven has also worked for the Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) (where he is a former IWGP Tag Team Champion); Impact Wrestling; and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) (where he is a former NWA World Historic Welterweight Champion).

In addition to wrestling, Taven and Mike Bennett operated a wrestling school in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

Marinelli, using the ring name Matt Taven, made his professional wrestling debut on March 7, 2008.

During his first year, Taven worked mainly for Top Rope Promotions (TRP) and Collision Pro Wrestling (CPW) in Massachusetts.

While working for TRP he challenged for the vacant TRP Interstate Championship in a six-way ladder match that also included Buck Nasty, Gregory Edwards, J. Freddie, Ryan Waters, and Spike Dudley, but lost to Buck Nasty.

Taven's first match for Ring of Honor (ROH) was on May 8, 2009, where he lost to Jaleel Patel in a dark match.

Taven competed in tag team matches over the course of 2010 and 2011, but lost every outing.

Taven went on to defeat Cole to win the television championship at the 11th Anniversary Show.

During the match he established himself as a heel after Truth Martini hit Cole in the back of the head with the Book of Truth, allowing Taven to apply his Climax finishing move to pick up the win.

On April 5, at Supercard of Honor VII, he successfully defended the title against Adam Cole and Matt Hardy.

At ROH's Boiling Point show on August 11, 2012, Taven lost a four-way match, where the winner would receive an ROH contract.

At the 12th Anniversary Show, he defeated Silas Young.

He would go on to win the 2013 Top Prospect Tournament the following year, with the storyline reward being that Taven would earn a full-time ROH contract.

With that win, Taven also earned a ROH World Television Championship match against Adam Cole.

On April 6, he would successfully defend the title against A. C. H. At Border Wars 2013 he would successfully defend the title against Mark Briscoe.

On June 22 at Best in the World 2013, Taven successfully defended the ROH World Television Championship against Jimmy Jacobs and Jay Lethal in a three-way match.

On August 3 at All Star Extravaganza 5, he faced Roderick Strong in a losing effort in the first round of the tournament to determine the new a champion after the ROH World Championship was vacated.

On September 20, 2013, at Death Before Dishonor XI, Taven, Michael Bennett and reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) lost to the team of Adrenaline Rush (ACH and TaDarius Thomas) and C&C Wrestle Factory (Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander) On September 21 he successfully defended the title against Jay Lethal.

On October 26 at Glory by Honor XII, he teamed with reDRagon and Adam Cole in an Eight-man elimination tag team match where he was eliminated by Michael Elgin.

On November 15 at Pursuit Night, he retained the title against Zach Gowen.

On December 14 at Final Battle 2013, Taven lost the ROH World Television Championship to Tommaso Ciampa.

Matt Taven's reign as World Television Champion was the longest in the company's history to date at 287 days and he accrued the most title defenses, 12, in an individual reign.

Taven fired Truth Martini at ROH's Wrestling's Finest show.

Later that night he unsuccessfully challenged Tommaso Ciampa for the ROH World Television Championship in a three-way match that also included Jay Lethal.

On March 7, 2014, at Raising The Bar Day 1, he unsuccessfully challenged Adam Cole for the ROH World Championship.

Taven then entered a feud with Jay Lethal, unsuccessfully challenging him for the ROH World Television Championship on three different occasions.

The first was at Global Wars in a four corner survival match that also included Tommaso Ciampa and Silas Young.

At War of the Worlds he teamed with ACH and Tommaso Ciampa to defeat Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero) and Takaaki Watanabe.

The second was at Best in the World in a singles match.

The last was at Field of Honor on August 15, where he was defeated by Lethal in a steel cage match after interference by Truth Martini.

On August 19, 2014, Taven announced he had decided not to re-sign with ROH and would be leaving the promotion.

This was an angle used to explain why Taven left the company.

Taven returned to Ring of Honor in October 2014.

In November 2014, Taven began teaming with Michael Bennett, collectively known as the Kingdom.

On November 15 at Glory By Honor XIII, they were defeated by reDRagon for the ROH World Tag Team Championship.

Almost one year later, on September 18, 2015, they won the title at All Star Extravaganza VII, when they defeated The Addiction (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) and The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) in a three-way match.