{"id":98387,"date":"2021-08-15T17:09:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T21:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=98387"},"modified":"2021-08-15T17:09:43","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T21:09:43","slug":"davey-richards-lone-wolf-comeback-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/08\/15\/davey-richards-lone-wolf-comeback-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lone Wolf Comeback Tour: The Return to Wrestling for Davey Richards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A quote that I&#8217;ve always referred to when I think of wrestling is \u201c<em>It\u2019s always the small pieces that make up the big picture<\/em>.\u201d You can\u2019t have a big picture without a bunch of small pieces taking up the majority of the space. &#8220;The Lone Wolf&#8221; <strong>Davey Richards<\/strong> has always been a part of the \u201cbig picture\u201d in wrestling. Whether it\u2019s his legendary <strong>Ring Of Honor<\/strong> run that included a 321-day reign as ROH World Champion or a tag team tenure with <strong>Eddie Edwards<\/strong>, that saw the two capture tag team gold a total of ten times, Richards has been a constant in the business since his debut in 2004.<\/p>\n<h2>The Lone Wolf: An Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe Lone Wolf\u201d has always been a favorite of mine and has put on some of my favorite matches ever. Richards&#8217;s bout against <strong>Shingo Takagi<\/strong> from <strong>Dragon Gate USA<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong><em>Untouchable<\/em><\/strong> in 2009 is personally in my top ten matches ever. <strong>The (American) Wolves<\/strong> are one of my favorite tag teams ever and were a primary reason that I watched and kept up with <strong>Total Nonstop Action Wrestling<\/strong> in 2014-2015.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26530 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/09\/davey-richards.jpg\" alt=\"Davey Richards Return\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/09\/davey-richards.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/09\/davey-richards-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Richards has always toyed with the idea of retirement, citing that he wanted to pursue a full-time career in the medical field. When he officially announced his retirement from <strong>Global Force Wrestling<\/strong> in the summer of 2017, many people thought we had seen the last of the \u201cFull Metal Bulldog\u201d. While he stayed relatively quiet on social media, he did occasionally share some <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/richardswesley\/status\/1064714400941187072?s=21\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commendable medical achievements<\/a> with his followers.<\/p>\n<p>When the indy wrestling scene began to rise back to the surface after a 13-month Covid hiatus, along came Davey Richards with it. Richards was first announced in early April for a <strong>Global Syndicate Wrestling<\/strong> show, followed by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/05\/20\/mlw-drafts-davey-richards\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Major League Wrestling<\/strong> announcing his signing<\/a> as a &#8220;first-round draft pick&#8221; in late May.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Return of Davey Richards<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Ever since his triumphant return, Davey has been receiving universal praise from fans, promoters, and even wrestlers alike. He\u2019s been putting over tons of popular independent stars like <strong>Bryan Keith<\/strong>, <strong>Chip Day<\/strong>, <strong>Jordan Oliver<\/strong>, and <strong>Everett Connors<\/strong>, while also having great performances against veterans like <strong>Jonathan Gresham<\/strong> and <strong>TJP<\/strong>. Richards has worked for 10 different promotions across the country in just under two months. Promoters are scattering to capitalize off the hype that Richards is bringing to the business right now, with Sami Callihan\u2019s promotion <strong>Wrestling Revolver<\/strong> even announcing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fightful.com\/wrestling\/american-wolves-set-reunite-wrestling-revolver\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a reunion of The American Wolves<\/a>. It seems like a new booking is rolling in every day for the former Ring Of Honor world champion.<\/p>\n<p>I personally applaud Richards for trying his hand at a new company upon his return. Many wrestlers will go back to their roots after taking time off, but Richards instead joined MLW. Richards cited that he joined the Major League Wrestling roster because it was an \u201corganic fit\u201d and wanted to work with a promotion that \u201cthinks along the same lines\u201d as his sports-based views on wrestling. The 5x TNA World Tag Team Champion would have been welcomed back to <em>IMPACT Wrestling<\/em> with open arms, but instead, he chose a different route that includes a slate of fresh opponents like <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/11\/29\/jacob-fatu-is-the-next-big-thing\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Jacob Fatu<\/strong><\/a>, <strong>Alex Hammerstone<\/strong>, <strong>Tom Lawlor<\/strong>, and <strong>LA Park<\/strong>. I don&#8217;t think a return to IMPACT is completely out of question for Richards, but I commend him for trying something new upon his return.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/oalFqu7tzd8<\/p>\n<p>The influence Richards has can be felt through his wrestling dojo in St. Louis &#8211; the Team Ambition Dojo. The school is brand new and not much is known about it, but the trainees and Richards himself often tout the school on social media.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What to Expect<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Richards\u2019s comeback tour has been nothing short of spectacular, and I\u2019m excited to see what&#8217;s in the cards for the future of \u201cThe Lone Wolf\u201d. With all companies seemingly being willing to work with each other nowadays, I\u2019d love to see Richards return to his origins in Ring Of Honor or <strong>New Japan Pro-Wrestling<\/strong>, or even a venture back to the newly returned <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/06\/10\/pro-wrestling-guerrilla-return-august\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Pro Wrestling Guerrilla<\/strong><\/a>. Richards has expressed interest in working with a ton of new fresh faces on the indies, even guys that grew up watching Richards in his prime.<\/p>\n<p>Long live Davey Richards, &#8220;The Lone Wolf&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A quote that I&#8217;ve always referred to when I think of wrestling is \u201cIt\u2019s always the small pieces that make up the big picture.\u201d You can\u2019t have a big picture without a bunch of small pieces taking up the majority of the space. &#8220;The Lone Wolf&#8221; Davey Richards has always been a part of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3960,"featured_media":98419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5283,6,2192],"tags":[650],"class_list":["post-98387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","category-mlw","category-north-america","category-wrestling","tag-davey-richards"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}