Paul London is back in the ring with MLW, and he recently reflected on his journey to this point. After making his return to the promotion at Summer of the Beasts in August, London sat down for an interview with Fightful to discuss his career and what led him back to MLW. Below are some key highlights from their conversation:
Paul London on almost doing a show for ROH in 2020:
Well, I took some time off here in the pandemic. I was supposed to work the Ring of Honor show in Vegas and that got canceled on or around Valentine’s Day. I could be off a month. It could be March 14th, but I want to say it was around February. It was March 14th. So I was geared up to go do that and that got canceled. So then the whole pandemic thing happened and I was living, at the time, I was in Sherman Oaks at the time, but I was really close to all these all this looting and all it was just chaos, right? So my mind was everywhere, but pro wrestling. Then I moved to the hood, because I wanted to get more street and I started working a shoot job and it was fun for a while, but then I started to see I think AEW came up around the time and I have a lot of friends there.”
Paul London on trying to find his interest in independent shows during that time:
So you’re always going to be curious. So I was watching it and I’m like, ‘Ah, some of this is really bad,’ and then I was watching some other stuff just out of curiosity, but still didn’t have too much of an interest.”
Paul London on losing confidence in potentially returning at some point:
I was still working out and training and I was actually training at a ring in Burbank, working out with some guys. I was kind of loosely training my roommate at the time, who was a comedian, and LA Knight would come in, Sean Ricker, he’d come in and work out from time to time, which was great. Because he and I are old pals. But it was just cool. It was a little just like a jam session for guys who wanted to just kind of keep the joints well oiled. But it was just like, ‘I’d really like to just kind of keep coaching and stuff,’ but just didn’t really have much interest performing anymore. Not because I didn’t want to perform, but because my confidence had kind of sunk so low and I felt, ‘God, like all these guys are just doing so many explosive things. Like I’m gonna be the fat guy going in there and just kind of like being like, hold on, ref, he pulled my trunks, ref, whoa, whoa, whoa.’ I was like, ‘Is that me? Is that, that’s where I’m at now? Like, this is terrible.’ Oh, yeah, that’d be fun in there, they’re like, ‘Do a flip, do a destroyer.’ So I didn’t want to deal with any of that and I was convinced that that’s where I was at in my life and in my career.”
Paul London on reaching out to AEW through Christopher Daniels to see if he could help:
It got to the point where I actually reached out to Daniels and was like, ‘Hey, I’ve seen the show. I’d love to help any way I can.’ I kind of got like a revolving door answer. It was like, ‘Oh, well, yeah, no, see you later.’ That was fine. I get it. I guess they have all the help they need.”
Paul London on going to MLW:
But a significant figure in MLW had been reaching out to me over the past few years and this was during the pandemic. Then again, I left the hood and I moved to New Mexico, reached out to me when I was in New Mexico, but to be honest, my confidence just wasn’t there. I just thought, Karrion Kross, he’s another really good friend of mine. He was with MLW at the time and I thought, ‘Oh, well, you know, if I could come in and do something with him,’ but I didn’t want to put any kind of stain on him too, because he was doing so great. I thought, ‘Oh, well, maybe there’s something with this kind of underground kind of iteration that they’re doing with the members that were at Lucha. Maybe there’s something there that I could kind of weasel my way in and kind of fool people into thinking I can still do this stuff.’ But it was mostly just all shit that was in my head, you know what I mean? That’s kind of the poison that when you’re a performer, it can seep into your head and it can be very difficult to get that out. So long winded answer wrapping up. Fast forward to being back in Southern California and it was actually my wrestling manager who receives my bookings and all that stuff because it’s sometimes difficult for me to keep up with a lot it. ‘I tried to, I emailed you three years ago and you never responded.’ Like, ‘Oh, spam folder!’ Some of that stuff just does my head in. So he helps me with that and he’s also the co-owner with me at my wrestling academy.”
