TJP hopes to change his luck in the MLW Opera Cup.
TJP recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard ahead of his appearance in the 2021 MLW Opera Cup. The tournament kicks off on October 2, where TJP will face off with Alex Shelley in the first round. After losing each of his first-round matches in the first two events, the “Cruiser-great” explained how he’s going to turn things around and spoke about the dynamic Shelley (and the unique MLW roster) presents.
“Each of the last couple of years I’ve been in both the Opera Cup and the Super J Cup. It’s an honor to be in both, I need to get past the dang first-round though, that’s what’s killing me. It’s always interesting for me with either one of those two tournaments, particularly with the Opera Cup, is the type of talent. And the talent that’s on the MLW roster is more unique than the talent on any of the other rosters, at least at the places that I’m currently circling. I guess I’m a wayward traveler these days but in IMPACT, everyone’s familiar with some of the guys that are there,” he explained, “especially the guys that are coming into the X-Division and some of the guys that have been stalwarts there for a while. New Japan, kind of the same thing and I’m a returning member of New Japan, so were some of the kind of elder-statesmen that were there when I came up almost 20-years ago. MLW though has guys that you won’t really see anywhere else and matches just you won’t really see anywhere else.”
TJP said Alex Shelley presents a similar challenge to that of Davey Richards, who he faced last week on MLW Fusion: ALPHA.
“I’m kind of faced with opponents that are very different in that way. I don’t know where else I would’ve ran into [Brian] Pillman Jr. for example, Davey [Richards] coming back, he’s a unique commodity because you really only see him at MLW unless you catch him regionally at a local card and even then I still think it’s a little bit rare. Then Alex Shelley, it’s almost the same deal, he’s a unique and niche performer right now. He’s not as common as he used to be and for me, Shelley’s a guy that I’ve known for 20-years and we have very similar styles and the way we like to put stuff together is similar because he can do a bunch of different things, kind of like me,” he noted, “and we even have kind of a similar aesthetic on the outside. We’re friends for a reason, I guess that’s probably why. But it’ll be interesting for me because he’s kind of the type of guy where I’ll go in there and turn my brain off and go on auto-pilot and before I know it we have a pretty good little war going. I’m looking forward to it for that reason and because he’s someone that’s pretty like-minded like me.”
The MLW Opera Cup kicks off at MLW’s “Fightland” event on Saturday, October 2. Check out the updated card at this link.
