Josh Bishop is in MLW to add gold to his resume.
Bishop will team with ‘Filthy’ Tom Lawlor to challenge The Second Gear Crew’s Matthew Justice and 1 Called Manders for the MLW World Tag Team Championship at MLW Kings Of Colosseum. Josh Bishop spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard ahead of the show about his relationship with Lawlor, whom he has worked with in Absolute Intense Wrestling.
Bishop said it’s a lot more fun seeing opponents getting kicked instead of being on the receiving end of Lawlor’s strikes. They also have a great relationship, and Bishop highlighted how they know how to have fun in the ring.
“It’s awesome teaming with him because he is one of my better friends in life, not even just wrestling. So we talk all the time. I have a very similar mindset. [We] pretty much d*ck off all the time together at shows and the ring. It’s super easy. We were doing this stuff at AIW where it was almost like we were a team. We’ve been doing it anyway, where it’s like we wrestle each other at a bunch of matches, then we were randomly in a four-way, um. I was just like, ‘What if we just thought it was a tag team match for some reason?’ in a promo,” Bishop said.
Bishop noted the promo was a success, and the locker room and the fans both loved it. That led them to thinking it could be a sustained gimmick, and then MLW called him to come in.
“We were like, ‘Maybe it would work if we were actually a team.’ Then two weeks later, MLW randomly hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, do you want to? Come into WTF?’ And I was just like, ‘Alright, that’s cool. That’s Tom’s crew. That’s awesome.’ And our first match, we were a team, and we were just doing the same stuff we always do, but it’s on a bigger stage. It’s pretty fun, honestly, because we’ve never actually teamed before. We just act like goofs, pretty much in these four-way matches.”
Poetry in motion
Bishop noted how they did a blindfold match and a casket match together, and they called them both on the fly, which built the chemistry they had even more.
“We called both these matches on the fly in the ring, and they just built like this crazy chemistry we have. It feels like it stems from that,” he said. “But we already know what we’re thinking before we even get to the show. Like, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’ Like we did a four-way with Rocky Romero and I was like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do a spot. We’re doing a tag. You get down and I’ll do the Jeff Hardy Poetry in Motion thing.’ And he goes, ‘But I’ll fall down because you’re too heavy.’
“And I went, ‘Yes, that’s what I was literally about to tell you, and then you do it to him later. We switch up and I’ll be the one that gets down.’ Then we did it, and the crowd was like losing it for each of these dumb antics we do,” Bishop added. “Then our tag match with [Alex] Hammerstone was our first actual tag match ever where we’ve ever teamed together, even though we’ve been in the ring together probably 30 times. We just always do these stupid bits.”
Top Guy
Bishop is part of MLW’s World Titan Federation (WTF) stable, the same group that Alex Hammerstone was part of. Hammerstone has since left MLW, but Bishop was asked how he views his place in WTF, and MLW in general. Bishop knows it’s cliché, but he wants to be the top guy in MLW. He wants to steal the show and make fans leave shows being impressed.
“If you don’t want to be the top guy, then get out. I really believe that. Okay, cool, I’m gonna have to learn how to do this MLW TV style. And once I do that, no one’s gonna stop me. I’m gonna figure out what I gotta do to take my skills that make me stand out currently and transcend them, elevate them,” Bishop said. “And that’s why I’m lucky that I got guys like Tom Lawlor helping me out. Matt Cardona, when he was there, that’s another one of my guys.”
“Then they put me and Justice together to fight each other. We’ll kill each other probably in a ring, to be honest. I don’t really think there’s anything that we won’t do. It’s like, alright, well, sorry guys, but we’re here to steal the show. And if people get mad about that, I’m sorry, but you should want to be there to make sure when everyone leaves the 2300 Arena at the Colosseum, that they left saying, ‘Man, I wish I loved whoever you are.’ But me, when they leave there, I already know what they’re going to be saying. ‘Damn, I cannot believe we saw the night the WTF superstars Tom Lawlor and Josh Bishop were crowned the new MLW Tag Team Champions.”
MLW Kings Of Colosseum takes place on Saturday, January 6 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. Watch our full interview with Josh Bishop below:
