Tom Lawlor talks teaming with Fred Rosser.
In January, Tom Lawlor and Fred Rosser teamed together in a match that was taped for Ring Of Honor television. Many fans were surprised to see Lawlor and Rosser paired up, as the duo have faced in each in plenty of heated singles matches over the years.
While speaking to Fightful for a new interview, Lawlor compared teaming with Rosser to teaming with his current MLW tag team partner, Davey Boy Smith Jr.
"Well, when you bring that up and start talking about it, it reminds me of teaming with Davey Boy Smith in a lot of ways. It’s a guy that I fought over and over, I’ve done battle with in the past and it’s not hard for us, necessarily, to get on the same page. Now it was weird teaming with Fred and there’s been so many times where I’ve just been in matches and my sole focus was to rip this guy’s face off, no matter how many other people were on the sidelines, involved in the match, whatever. To team with him is weird, but obviously I have great respect for this guy. Probably more respect than anybody out there realizes. I’ve been to one professional wrestling seminar that I can remember in recent times and it was a Fred Rosser seminar, let me just put it that way. So I’m happy to team with him. I hope I get to more."
Lawlor then went on to recall the moment when he found out he'd be wrestling Rosser for the very first tine.
"I remember, I was on my way to that taping. It was during the pandemic, the first time I wrestled him. I’m the kind of guy, I love the idea of those PWG Mystery Vortex shows where you don’t know what’s going to happen. I love one night tournaments because you don’t know who’s gonna make it to the second round and sometimes it’s a guy that is an alternate and loses in his alternate fight, and somehow his alternate makes it through. But I didn’t ask who I was facing until I was on my way to that show. When I found out, I was like, ‘What? Excuse me? Alright.’ It was not somebody I expected to have any sort of in-ring chemistry with or, honestly, any kind of chemistry with. I’d watched Fred as a Primetime Player. I had watched him with his little bow tie on hanging out with Bob Backlund. To see him now, clearly it’s the same guy, but you’d be hard pressed to find anybody that knew, really knew, that this was the kind of guy that he was."
Lawlor finished off by stating that he thinks that NJPW STRONG was the best weekly wrestling show when it was airing.
"Yeah, I really think that the two year run of the weekly STRONG shows, if you watch them, it was consistently over that two year span, I think, the best weekly pro wrestling show. There was not a ton of bullshit or simple angles. There was some of the top stars you see on wrestling TV now were competing on those shows. I loved it."
Elsewhere in the interview, Lawlor talked about his love for DEADLOCK Pro Wrestling. Fans can learn more here.
Fans can check out Fightful's full interview with Lawlor in the video linked above.
