Joe Dombrowski Confirms Multi-Year Agreement With MLW, Teases Other Projects
On today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with new MLW color commentator Joe Dombrowski. Dombrowski has previously been on The Wrestling Inc. Daily to talk about the Brian Pillman Memorial Show Anthology he produced with help from AEW's Brian Pillman Jr. However, today, Dombrowski talked about his MLW signing and revealed how that came together.
"Well, so many of my biggest opportunities in wrestling happen almost by chance. There's an odd series of events I'm amazed that gets me to where I'm meant to go," Dombrowski admitted. "It happened with Ring of Honor, happened with Impact back in the day. It happened with AAA, and in a lot of ways, much like those other opportunities, it was timing. It was in my favor more so than anything else, and it was actually my friend Kevin Kelly who had suggested to reach out to Court Bauer. And MLW was really the only company I didn't have some type of relationship with just because I never really met or worked with anybody in the office yet, but Court was very receptive, and he had actually seen my work for TripleMania a few years ago down for AAA when I worked with Matt Striker.
"He showed interest, and we talked about a few different projects that are still in the works and I'm probably not allowed to talk about yet. As those continue to develop and evolve, it wound up with me sitting next to your buddy Rich Bocchini (Nick's fellow Warrior Wrestling commentary partner) on Fusion: Alpha every week for MLW. Rich and I already had a bit of a chemistry. We had done an event together, part of an event, down during one of the WrestleMania weekends in Florida. And we also went to the Middle East together in Qatar right before COVID hit in February 2020. We were friends.
"We knew each other, and that helped us get this thing off and running and avoid a lot of the growing pains that maybe some first-time teams would have. My very first MLW match had Lee Moriarty in it, and Lee, I called his first match. I've known him since he was training. So it fit like a glove right away, and it felt like somewhere that I needed to be and I wanted to be. And talking about some of that great timing, it's funny too, because when COVID hit last year, obviously I wasn't on the road much. I had a lot of extra time. I was only kind of doing projects kind of peripherally. I thought to myself, you know what, I've never taken the time to sit down and invest in watching MLW TV.
"I'm gonna do that, and I've been binge watching the show. I've been doing one episode a day, every day I've kind of had time and been home for the past year plus. So I have some familiarity with the product. I know who the guys are. I kind of get the history now, and funny, on top of that, I have a VHS copy of MLW's very first event from 2002 with Satoshi Kojima, and Jerry Lynn, and La Parka, and Steve Corino and all those guys. So MLW has always kind of been on the periphery for me, but over the past year it's become more and more part of my life leading up to the culmination of this signing. I don't really believe in it was meant to be, or necessarily serendipitous occasions, but it all came together and in a perfect storm."
Hausman asked Dombrowski if the plan going forward is for him and Rich Bocchini to be the main commentary team for MLW. MLW's next big show will be on November 6 where Contra Unit will take on MLW World Heavyweight Champion Hammerstone's team of four at War Chamber.
"As far as I know," Dombrowski stated. "I mean, never say never in wrestling, but it seems like the plan moving forward is me and Bocchini doing Fusion: Alpha. I am committed to MLW for a multi-year agreement, and I'm looking forward to growing that, and developing that, and seeing where that takes me and seeing where that takes MLW. It's an exciting time in pro wrestling and things are changing by the week it seems like. I'm looking forward to the future. I'm looking forward to War Chamber."
You can follow Joe on Twitter @Joe_Dombrowski
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