Tom Lawlor Teases Impending Announcement About His Pro Wrestling Future

NJPW Strong Openweight Champion “Filthy” Tom Lawlor was on a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Lawlor is now officially a free agent after four years in MLW, and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked Lawlor to clarify his status since he is a champion for a major promotion.

“Yeah, I’m currently not under contract with any professional wrestling organization for anything other than single dates,” Lawlor confirmed. “Now, how long that will remain the case? I don’t know. Hopefully not very long, to be fair, but I have been contacted for some pretty interesting independent shows. I have to check on the dates of those. We’ll see what happens in the future, but I’m expecting something by the end of this week, if not sooner.”

Lawlor is a former MLW World Heavyweight Champion and has been a mainstay for the company during his four years with MLW. He explained why he chose not to re-sign with MLW.

“I guess that’s one of the issues is I’ve been there for years. I’ve been there for four years,” Lawlor stated. “There comes a time, I guess, when you either move on, or you continue down the path that you’re going, and with so much uncertainty over the past year, the past two years, fortunately, unfortunately, I find myself in a financial position where I don’t need to really be under contract with anybody if I don’t want to. MLW and I talked. They gave me a great deal. I’m not going to complain about the offer that was out there, but at the end of the day, I think it was time to kind of move away from there. Hopefully, I will be back in the future. Hopefully, there’ll be a scenario in which I can step into the MLW ring again, but I don’t know when that’ll be.”

Lawlor is currently set to defend his NJPW Strong Openweight Championship against Fred Rosser at NJPW Strong Detonation on November 15. Hausman asked Lawlor if his departure from MLW was an amicable one.

“Yeah, I mean, I hope so,” Lawlor said. “I went out there. I’d like to think I tried as hard as I could to do my job. I think it was a mutually beneficial relationship, in most ways, for both of us. During the pandemic, I was doing content for them, left to right, almost every week, trying to keep not only myself but them out in the news. They helped me out a few times with getting extra bookings, that sort of thing put me in contact with other promotions. Like I said, I have no qualms about spending my time there for the past four years, and like I said, I’m not opposed to going back there in the future, but for right now, I’m a free agent.”