Kyle O’Reilly Looks Back On Meeting Bobby Fish: He Beat The Hell Out Of Me

Good things comes to those who wait.

AEW stars Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish are on the cusp of their 10-year anniversary as a tag team, however when the pair first met, it wasn’t all sunshine.

“There’s a bit of a history of meeting each other before being out together and I’m sure that we both have completely different point of views on that story,” O’Reilly explained when he and Fish appeared on Talk Is Jericho

O’Reilly called how they first crossed paths at a NOAH camp in 2008. At the time, he was hoping to land some work with the promotion, and Fish was already established there. For this reason, KOR looked up to Fish, so much so that he purposely made sure that he got paired with the latter in a drill. But in doing so, O’Reilly got more than he bargained for.

“…My main goal was to impress the NOAH guys, so I’m timing the drills and as soon as Bobby slides in, I’d slide in, that way I’d be paired with Bobby,” said O’Reilly. “And the first thing I do is drill him so hard with a forearm, like, I just blast him, and then Bobby proceeds to beat the ever-loving Christ out of me for the next five minutes, as he should have. I was just this new guy coming in, I’m too excited and I didn’t stiff him, I hit him in a safe spot as far as I could recall, but he did the right thing by putting me in my place and explaining why he did it and the reasoning behind it.

“And I’m pretty sure [Ricky] Steamboat was there as the WWE rep, and he explained it to me and said that we’re in this business to protect each other and I think that they thought we were actually f*****g each other up. But the NOAH guys said we did a great job, so I guess I impressed those guys, and it’s just a hilarious story.”

Fish would then chime in and explain his side of the story. He described why he felt the need to really give it to KOR during their first interaction. In his mind, he was trying to help O’Reilly by teaching him the same way some of the veterans gave him a rude awakening to the wrestling world when he was first starting out.

“…I was basically playing that forward, looking back, like the Bushi-Rhodes style that NOAH did, and all that was like you guys just went way too hard, way too often and a ton of injuries will confirm that,” said O’Fish. “But I was too young to know that there was not a longevity in that, I was just going along to get along, and not too long before that, I had a tag match and Low-Ki was on that tour, and he kind of clued me in because Segura put it on me at one point.

“And ya know, you were taking heat there and that’s your job, and you do that for years, sometimes and some people never stop doing it. Segura lit me up one time and I didn’t know why, but Low-Ki was nice enough to explain it to me and it was the same thing, I was in there and I was overzealous, and he let me know, very much in a working fashion. So, it was kind of one of those scenarios where we ended up not totally different, his recollection than mine but that’s kind of what it was.”

Despite this rough beginning, O’Reilly and Fish wound up working together, first in EVOLVE and later in Ring of Honor. Ten years later, reDRagon is still going strong, and many fans are excited to see what the duo can do in AEW.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Talk is Jericho with a link back to this article for the transcription.

Related: reDRagon Explain The Inspiration Behind Their Tag Team Name