Chris Dickinson talks his rise on STRONG, May 28’s title bout with Tom Lawlor

Of the talent that NJPW fans have been introduced to Friday nights on STRONG in 2020, there are convincing arguments to be made that Chris Dickinson is the most impressive. Dickinson’s aggressive style and convincing performances have made him a more than qualified first challenger to Tom Lawlor’s STRONG Openweight Championship on May 28; the only issue being that Lawlor is Dickinson’s own Team Filthy leader. We sat down with Chris to talk his rise on Friday nights and a complicated title scenario. 

As soon as I heard about NJPW STRONG, I was waiting for the call

–So, Chris. NJPW fans are starting to be accustomed to you on NJPW STRONG, but in the US you’ve also been active in places like ROH, and BLOODSPORT of late.

Dickinson: I’m lucky enough that I’m staying busy right now, yeah.

 –Obviously, the pandemic has affected a freelance wrestler like yourself; how is your outlook right now?

Dickinson: It’s a thousand times better than this time last year for sure. Night and day. This time last year was so strange, and I wasn’t sure whether I could even wrestle anymore.

 –You live in New York, which was the center of the news coming out of the US last spring.

Dickinson: Everything really happened so fast, from normal life to being shut down. The wrestling scene was very chaotic for a while because everyone was figuring out what protocols to make and follow. But I was able to wrestle with GCW (Game Changer Wrestling) and then NJPW STRONG really was huge for me. Now I’m staying pretty busy and I’m in amazing environments like STRONG is. I’m very thankful.

 –The start of spring is a busy period for US wrestling, and you were lined up for some big matches before the pandemic hit last year, right?

Dickinson: I was scheduled to wrestle Minoru Suzuki, and I was scheduled to wrestle Shingo Takagi before everything fell through. I really thought that could have been my time to turn heads. The lightbulbs were going off in my head.

 –You thought that if the right people were watching those matches there could be a big opportunity for you in the future.

Dickinson: I’d been on one tour of Japan with GCW and FREEDOMS, and I really wanted to do what I could to get back. I thought this could be the chance I was looking for to not only come back to Japan, but to do it with the biggest and the best promotion in Japan. In the end, things turned out differently obviously, but as soon as I heard NJPW STRONG was happening, I was waiting by the phone hoping I’d get the call, and eventually I did.

All that history… Everything’s connected

 –You’ve had quite a bit of experience all over the world. You debuted very young, didn’t you?

Dickinson: I actually started training when I was 15. I lived in Staten Island, New York, which is right next to New Jersey, and I got started with a company called Jersey All Pro-Wrestling.

 –When NJPW had their 2011 East Coast Invasion tour it was in collaboration with JAPW.

Dickinson: You’re right! I actually had hurt my knee around that time, so I wasn’t involved with those cards at all, but I remember that tour happening.

 –So JAPW was a fairly well known promotion in your area.

Dickinson: They were the group that made me aware that there was independent wrestling outside of WWE on TV or whatever. And I knew someone at my school that was going to their wrestling school, and I begged him to let me come with him.

 –So you wrestled ever since?

Dickinson: No, I learned some fundamentals and wrestled for two years. I did a few matches, but didn’t really know much about what I was doing. I took a break, did the usual teenage stuff, heheh. Graduated high school, got involved with girls, played in bands, that kind of thing. But I still wanted to come back to it, and do things more seriously. That’s when I started really working out.

 –You worked on that distinctive look you have now. Who trained you at that point?

Dickinson: It was James Maritato, who you might know as Little Guido.

 –Little Guido was a popular name for ECW and had a spell in WWE as well. He had quite a comical Italian character, but he was a serious grappler. He trained in the Snake Pit in Japan, and had experience with UWF.

Dickinson: It’s funny, because now I train and work out a lot with Josh Barnett, who has all that history and that connection to Karl Gotch, Billy Robinson, Antonio Inoki. James was trained by Robinson, too.

 –Did that training with him really inform your style now? Did he get you involved in the more Japanese style of wrestling?

Dickinson: Not really. He didn’t so much directly teach me in that style, but he was very different as a coach to what I’d experienced before. He was much more physical when I got on the mat with him. Not in a negative way at all, but he made you work a lot more compared to the training I’d had before, and that taught me how things were going to be. Subconsciously I think it informed the way I wrestled.

To get the call to STRONG was a miracle

 –So what brought you into Japanese pro-wrestling, and who caught your eyes as a fan?

Dickinson: I started getting on the internet when I was a kid in 1997, 1998. I remember the first website I ever visited was wwf.com (laughs). But like a lot of people I was trading tapes, and I still have a ton of them now. I had a tape of Dr. Death, Steve Williams’ best matches in Japan and watched that over and over, and then I got into what the junior heavyweights were doing in New Japan as well. It just snowballed.

 –Young wrestlers now are getting influences from all over with the likes of YouTube and NJPW World, all this easy access to wrestling, but things were different in the early Internet days.

Dickinson: You had the breadcrumbs there but you had to do the work yourself. You might think ‘who is this Masahiro Chono guy on WCW Nitro?’ or you’d be playing the N64 game and here’s Jyushin Liger all of a sudden. Masato Tanaka was a big influence because of his work in ECW. You do the legwork and then get VHS tapes, and you’d get more invested. I like the way that worked out.

 –You debuted on NJPW STRONG this January and gave a very heartfelt post match comment about how important being in an NJPW ring was for you.

Dickinson: Really my whole life has been based around getting to wrestle in Japan. I got to do that once, and when I got there, it made me feel that it was the beginning and not the end. I had opportunities coming, and I was hoping to get on NJPW’s radar as well, and then -boom- pandemic, and everything that happened in 2020. But lo and behold, NJPW STRONG became a thing. To get that call to do STRONG was a miracle. It meant the world to me.

 –It wasn’t quite the way you thought it would happen, but you made it to New Japan.

Dickinson: It’s pretty strange to think that I wrestle for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in Los Angeles, but it happened and that’s the main thing.

Everything I’ve done has helped me in that environment

 –And then you got the chance to team up with Jon Moxley against Yuji Nagata and Ren Narita last week. 

Dickinson: When I got the call to be in that match, it was like a shock of electricity. It’s not every day you get the chance to share a ring with one of your favourite wrestlers, which Nagata definitely is. I’m always dying to get my hands on Ren (Narita), and teaming with Mox was a seamless experience, we had good chemistry considering it was the first time we tagged. As far as Nagata is concerned it was hopefully the first of many times to face him. 

–Being an independent wrestler, you’ve experienced all kinds of environments, especially over the last year or so. What is the STRONG environment like to compete in?

Dickinson: I’ve wrestled outside, inside, with people there, with no fans, really everything. I think first and foremost as a freelancer you have to be grateful to be working, period. Whatever happens, it’s a blessing. When it comes to the closed studio, no fan setting, I think you have to take everything to the next level.

 –The fans aren’t creating the atmosphere for you to feed on, so you’re creating the atmosphere yourself.

Dickinson: Exactly. Your intensity has to be ramped up, you have to have even more fire than normal. So I’m even more worked up at STRONG than anywhere else. The fans are only seeing you through the lens of a camera, so you’re having to really come through the TV screen to people. It’s a different style, a different dynamic, but it’s still pro-wrestling.

 –Does your UWF style intense training experience and in ring style help you in the STRONG setting?

Dickinson: Absolutely. I have a lot of influences, but I think everything I’ve done has helped me in that environment. In that setting, I actually might be a little bit more economical, use fewer moves and get the most out of them. Shooto techniques, finding a specific body part, having a clear game plan, that’s really important when there isn’t a crowd.

 –You have to mentally prepare more?

Dickinson: Yeah. You have less time to play games. You have to focus on the guy that’s in front of you, 100%, so having that experience in shoot grappling and submission wrestling is really important. I’m always tweaking my game, but I do feel I have had to change to adapt, and that’s a good thing.

 –One thing that makes STRONG stand out is that it seems matches can end at any second. A lot of wrestlers will look for one or two signature moves, but in your last few matches alone, we’ve seen you win with a piledriver, a Death Valley, STFs, even a knockout forearm.

Dickinson: That’s really me as a pro-wrestler. I think wrestling should be like that. Any move is dangerous, and any move can get the job done if you know how to use them right. So I have signature moves, but it’s more about having a gameplan to break my opponent down, and if it works, it works.

I believe that I have a good shot at beating Tom, so I challenged him.

 –You came into STRONG as part of Team Filthy as a mystery partner. When we spoke to Tom Lawlor earlier in the year, he mentioned that you were brought together fairly suddenly as a group on STRONG, but that you’ve since gelled as a unit.

Dickinson: Yeah… well (Danny) Limelight’s off the wall…(laughs). He’s a bit too much for me. Tom’s a great fighter and a great wrestler. He might go a bit too far sometimes, a little too intense, but he’s a great competitor, and JR Kratos is a beast. So yeah, it’s an effective team. A great group of athletes, and we’ve been pretty consistent results wise.

 –That said you now face Tom Lawlor for the STRONG Championship at Collision on May 28.

Dickinson: Look, this is the most competitive company in the world. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the same team or not. I believe that I have a good shot at beating Tom, so I challenged him.

–Lawlor became the first champion by winning New Japan Cup USA, and with a championship on Friday nights, there seems to be a clear target for everybody on STRONG. How will the STRONG Openweight Championship change the landscape on NJPW STRONG?

Dickinson: I think it’s huge. Fans love titles and title matches, so it’s going to put more eyes on NJPW STRONG, and for the wrestlers there’s something to really chase after now, so I decided to chase after it as soon as I could. I didn’t get out of the first round of the New Japan Cup, but I was able to take the chance to challenge Tom. In the end I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win matches and win titles.

  –How do you view Tom Lawlor as a professional wrestler? You have some similarities stylistically, but he’s obviously competed at a very high level in MMA.

Dickinson: Tom is an amazing grappler, obviously. I’m looking forward to this match, not just to challenge for that title but to see where I am as a grappler myself. I want to prove to the world how I’ve evolved as a shoot grappler and submission wrestler.

 –You have a lot of respect for him.

Dickinson: Yeah. Like I said, he gets a but intense and goes a little too far at times…

 –Strong Style Evolved saw him direct you and JR Kratos in a post-match attack on Sterling Riegel; you refused to participate…

Dickinson: I might not agree with everything he’s about, but he’s a great pro-wrestler, and he’s evolved a lot himself in the last few years.

 –What kind of form will the match take? Will you try and test yourself in Lawlor’s own grappling game, or change things up?

Dickinson: Well, he has the experience edge in terms of submission wrestling perhaps, but you have to remember I’m heavier, I’m stronger. I have 20-30lbs on him. But he’s going to be in great shape conditioning wise. He’s a tough opponent, but I’m not intimidated by him. I’m not afraid to face him on the mat.

 –Should you beat Tom Lawlor, you might well expect Brody king to be next in line after he beat you during New Japan Cup USA. Who else would you like to see step up to try and challenge for that title if you win it?

Dickinson: You’re right when it comes to Brody. I respect the hell out of him too. Massive guy and a great athlete for his size. And even though he got eliminated too, I think Lio (Rush) is tremendous. I’ve never wrestled Lio anywhere, and that’s a first time match I’d love to have. There’s a lot of guys on STRONG that I’d love to wrestle and that’s the thing, everyone there is so driven, they want to be there, they want to succeed and they’re hungry.

 –And if you finally get that trip back to Japan?

Dickinson: Hiroshi Tanahashi is a life goal to wrestle, Yuji Nagata once again, obviously the matches I couldn’t have last year with Shingo Takagi and Minoru Suzuki. There’s too many to list, but one step at a time.