Paul London Should Have Been A Bigger Deal

When I think of the professional wrestlers who have influenced my fandom the most, the list of superstars ahead of Paul London is a short one.

Although he’s probably best known for his six-year tenure in WWE that featured runs as both a Tag Team and Cruiserweight Champion, London is also notable for winning the ECWA Super 8 in 2003. He recently caught up with Editor in Chief John Corrigan to share memories and stories from that tournament, and while listening to London speak after all these years, I was reminded of why he became one of my favorite wrestlers back in the day and just how much his work continues to mesh with everything I love about professional wrestling.

My first Paul London memory came when he was teaming with Billy Kidman on SmackDown back in 2004. I’m not sure if a “hot take” was still considered a “hot take” back in those days, but I have always been partial to London’s alliance with Kidman over his tag team with Brian Kendrick (although still great). I may have been new to professional wrestling, but I was not new to Star Wars, and the master-apprentice dynamic was very real between Kidman and London.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that my experience with the Paul London-Billy Kidman tag team may have been similar to how other wrestling fans viewed teams like The Fantastics or Strike Force. Dirty heels, in this case, The Dudley Boyz would put these guys into peril, but by some force of nature, Kidman and London would come out on top more often than not, and eventually claim the WWE Tag Team Championship as their own. I can remember being overcome with joy on the night that happened; I legitimately thought those two guys were the best tag team in the world.

Maybe they were. That thinking is made even crazier, however, by the fact that London has admitted he couldn’t stand working with Kidman and “didn’t like him as a person.”

“With Brian [Kendrick], we had each other’s backs,” London said in a 2014 interview. “With Kidman, he threw me under the bus most of the time just to keep himself over. He’s a scoundrel.”

Unfortunately, all debatably good things must come to an end, and that fall, Kidman would turn on London. The way this angle was done amazes me. Kidman, master of the Shooting Star Press, legitimately concussed Chavo Guerrero when his knees connected flush with Guerrero’s temple upon landing. In the ensuing weeks, guilt began to get the better of Kidman, and when the opportunity would arise to land the finishing blow, he would hesitate, costing him and London the match.

Kidman’s antics would take a toll on his relationship with London, and eventually cost them the titles as well as their on-screen friendship. I was disappointed, but at the time I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. Kidman’s heel turn, accentuated by London’s facials and body language during these matches, was just the type of turn to make a young fan such as myself question everything he’d been told about wrestling from non-fans.

To that end, Paul London said something to Corrigan that not only reminded me of the Kidman angle, but rings true to the way the angle made me feel.

“Kayfabe is not dead. Kayfabe is never dead,” London told Corrigan. “Kayfabe is only dead by the idiots who kill it in that moment. But I can guarantee you I can take any moment and make them believe it.”

The angle still holds up beautifully, but never quite caught on at the time, probably due to it playing fourth or fifth banana on a show committed to turning John Cena into a bonafide main eventer. Still, the angle would lead to better days for Paul London, someone I began to attain a deeper appreciation for as I got to see him as a singles competitor. I legitimately hated seeing him get roughed up, but why? After all, there was never any point during his WWE run where he received an ample amount of time on the microphone. It had to be entirely because of his in-ring capabilities, which speaks volumes about the kind of talent he was (and is).

But I’ve merely only touched on his selling ability and in-ring charisma. Offensively, London had no limit to his game. His kicks looked crisp and believable. He had a picture-perfect drop-sault he would sometimes chain into a pin within tag team matches. His 450 Splash was absolutely devastating. He could even throw around guys his own size, but the beauty of his moveset was its compatibility with wrestlers of all sizes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see London interact much with the top guys on SmackDown at the time (at least on screen), as he was largely relegated to cruiserweight or tag team matches. But for one reason or another, despite the lack of screen time, mic time and character development in general, I cared about Paul London. That is a tremendous credit to his ability as a performer.

Almost immediately after dropping the Cruiserweight Championship, the London & Kendrick pairing would be born, and the duo would become the standard bearers for tag team wrestling in WWE. For more than a decade, the duo’s 331 day-reign as WWE Tag Team Champions stood tall as the longest in WWE history, and they are one of just three teams (The Dudley Boyz and Miz and Morrison) to have won both the WWE and World Tag Team Championships before the belts became unified in 2009. They looked like a tag team, wrestled like a tag team and felt like a tag team, not to mention, their matches with MNM hold up as some of my favorite tag team matches of that time frame.

The team finally split during the 2008 Draft and WWE actually began to utilize Paul London in the Shawn Michaels-Chris Jericho storyline before releasing him later that year. Many have speculated why WWE fired London, but we do know he was the only wrestler to be grinning like a mannequin during Mr. McMahon’s “final moments” on Raw. Whether or not it’s the sole reason why he’s not with the company anymore is open to interpretation.

In the interviews I’ve seen, it seems Paul London is perfectly content to have washed his hands of WWE, but I always thought there could have been so much more for him. When I compare him to Kendrick (who got a little more run in WWE), I think of a wrestler with a better look, who is a slightly better athlete but a more of a polarizing figure. London has never been shy of giving his opinion, and sometimes that has been to his detriment, but it doesn’t change the fact he is such a unique personality within the space. Had he jived with the people he needed to jive with behind the scenes, who knows what his WWE career could have amounted to?

He had the ability to pack a Batista-like level of offensive explosiveness with the speed and precision of a Rey Mysterio combined with a similar type of in-ring charisma to a Ricky Morton. It makes me wonder what his fate may have been had he been the one drafted to SmackDown and rebranded to “The” Paul London. How might his career have differed? Would he have made it? Was his relationship with WWE just doomed to fail from the start?

I still think London has a ton to offer to professional wrestling. Based on the interview he gave with Corrigan, I love his approach to the game, which is an old-school mentality wrapped with a new-school flavor. He believes the essence of professional wrestling is two combatants vying to be the best at what they do, and I couldn’t agree more. Of course, personal issues have the potential to add exponentially to that equation, but as a base line, athletic competition is the way I have always seen wrestling. London worked as a producer on some Impact Wrestling shows back in 2019, and while he has something to offer behind the scenes, I’d like to see him wrestle again, no matter where he should happen to pop up.

If this is the end of the line for Paul London in the ring, though, he should be remembered as one of the elite talents of his time under 6 feet tall.