First Five MLW Opera Cup 2021 Participants Revealed

The first five participants of The 2021 Opera Cup have been announced. 2020 Opera Cup winner "Filthy" Tom Lawlor, Davey Richards, TJP, Matt Cross, and former D1 football recruit, Calvin Tankman, have been announced for the eight-man, single-elimination tournament.

The event will take place at the upcoming MLW Fightland event live on Saturday, October 2nd at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and airing nationally on a later date.

"For this year's Opera Cup, we've assembled an incredibly diverse line-up of fighters and exciting surprises that will make for some of the most explosive match-ups the tournament has seen to date," said MLW CEO Court Bauer. "The Opera Cup is dedicated to the great men who have fought valiantly before us and MLW has brought it back to reignite the spirit of the greats who preceded today and tomorrow's greats."

MLW will be announcing the final three entrants to the Opera Cup in the coming weeks, along with the complete tournament bracket. The tournament finals are scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 6th at MLW Intimidation Games also in Philadelphia.

MLW re-introduced the Professional Wrestling Opera House Cup in 2019 after a 71-year hiatus as its biggest annual tournament. The event was held annually for nearly 50 years at turn-of-the-century opera houses from New York to Boston and featured winners like George Hackenschmidt, Stu Hart, Leo Pardello, William Muldoon and Waldek Zbyszko. Upon returning to the Opera Cup to the national spotlight, MLW contracted the craftsman behind maintaining the Stanley Cup to restore the original Opera Cup trophy.