Robert Anthony Fish (born October 27, 1979) is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he competes in its developmental territory, NXT.
Fish is best known for his appearances with Ring of Honor (ROH) from 2013 to 2017, where he wrestled as one-half of the tag team reDRagon and held the ROH World Tag Team Championship and ROH World Television Championship. He is also known for his appearances in Japan for Pro Wrestling Noah and for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he held the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.
Professional wrestling career
Early career (2002â€"2006)
Bobby Fish made his pro wrestling debut in 2002 after training with Tony Devito and Harley Race. He competed for several years in the Northeast under the names Jerk Jackson and Madden Fisher before settling on the name he continues to use, Bobby Fish. He made his debut for Ring of Honor on October 2, 2004 where he teamed with Scott Cardinal and lost to the Rebel's Army. He would be utilized as a jobber for ROH for the entirety of his early appearance. Fish wrestled for Pro Wrestling Unplugged for the majority of his early career making his debut in February 2005. He formed a partnership with Scott Cardinal, whom he had wrestled many times on the Northeast indie scene. On May 20, he and Cardinal defeated three other teams to win the vacant PWU Tag Team Championship before vacting them in September.
After returning from his first tour with Noah, Fish returned to the Northeastern independent circuit and continues to compete there when he returns from Noah tours. Fish wrestled for New England Championship Wrestling regularly between his early tours of Noah. In April 2007, he defeated DC Dillinger by disqualification in a match for the NECW Undisputed Triple Crown Championship, but failed win the title. Fish took part in Iron 8 2007, making it to the finals where he lost to Eddie Edwards. Fish returned to ROH at Reborn Again in a loss to Claudio Castagnoli, teamed with Matt Cross at Final Battle 2007 in a loss against the Vulture Squad (Ruckus and Jigsaw), and appeared in several matches on Ring of Honor Wrestling in 2009.
In 2009, he was announced as one of the participants scheduled to wrestle on the first Evolve Wrestling show. On January 10, 2010, he performed in the opening match at Evolve 1, in which he lost to Kyle O'Reilly via pinfall.
Pro Wrestling Noah (2006â€"2013)
Fish first toured Japan in 2006 with Pro Wrestling Noah, making his debut on May 19, 2006 defeating Atsushi Aoki. For a number of years Fish toured with Noah at least once a year, sometimes enjoying several tours a year. In 2010, Fish and Eddie Edwards lost to Ricky Marvin and Taiji Ishimori in the semi final of the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship tournament. Fish participated in 2011s Global League gaining only four points. In 2012, Fish and Edwards participated in NTV G Cup Junior Heavyweight League, once again gaining four points. From April 17 to 24, 2013, Fish and Edwards took part in the 2013 Global Tag League, where they won one of their four matches, failing to advance from their block.
Ring of Honor (2012â€"2017)
In 2012, Fish debuted in Ring of Honor, where he formed a tag team with Kyle O'Reilly named "reDRagon". On March 2, 2013, reDRagon defeated the Briscoe Brothers for the ROH World Tag Team Championship. They successfully defended the championship against Alabama Attitude (Corey Hollis and Mike Posey) that same month, and retained it at Best in the World 2013 in June in a three-way match against the C & C Wrestle Factory (Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander) and S.C.U.M. (Cliff Compton and Rhett Titus). They lost the title to Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero) on July 27. They regained the title from The American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards) on August 17. Throughout the remainder of 2013, reDRagon successfully defended the championship against teams including the C & C Wrestle Factory, the Forever Hooligans, Jay Lethal and Michael Elgin, and Outlaw, Inc. (Homicide and Eddie Kingston). In 2014, they retained the championship against Adrenaline Rush (ACH and TaDarius Thomas) at the 12th Anniversary Show in February, before losing the title on March 8 to The Young Bucks.
Fish and O'Reilly regained the tag team championship from The Young Bucks on May 17, at the ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) co-promoted pay-per-view War of the Worlds. They successfully defended the championship against The Briscoe Brothers on June 7 and against Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian at ROH's first live pay-per-view Best in the World 2014 on June 22. On November 23, 2014, reDRagon defeated ACH and Matt Sydal, The Addiction and The Briscoes to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship and win the Tag Wars tournament. They followed up their victory with successful defenses against the Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and Kushida) at Final Battle 2014, The Young Bucks at the ROH 13th Anniversary Show, and The Kingdom (Michael Bennett and Matt Taven) at Supercard of Honor IX in March 2015. Fish and O'Reilly lost the tag team title to The Addiction (Daniels and Kazarian) at the Ring of Honor Wrestling tapings on April 4.
On May 13, during the second night of War of the Worlds '15, Fish unsuccessfully challenged Jay Briscoe for the ROH World Championship. On December 18, 2015 during Final Battle, Fish unsuccessfully challenged Roderick Strong for the ROH World Television Championship.
On May 8, 2016, at Global Wars, Fish defeated Tomohiro Ishii to become the new ROH World Television Champion. He lost the title to Will Ospreay on November 18. Fish was scheduled to compete in a four-way match for the Television title at Final Battle, against champion Marty Scurll, Will Ospreay, and Dragon Lee, but was forced to pull out due to a family emergency. On January 3, 2017, it was reported that Fish had re-signed with ROH. Fish was unsuccessful in an attempt to win the ROH World Championship from Adam Cole at Manhattan Mayhem VI. In March 2017, Fish announced his departure from Ring of Honor.
New Japan Pro Wrestling (2014â€"2016)
Through ROH's relationship with NJPW, reDRagon made an appearance for the Japanese promotion on August 10, 2014, unsuccessfully challenging Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and Kushida) for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. reDRagon returned to NJPW on October 25 to take part in the 2014 Super Jr. Tag Tournament. On November 3, reDRagon defeated The Young Bucks in the finals to win the tournament. Five days later at Power Struggle, reDRagon defeated Time Splitters in a rematch to become the new IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. They made their first successful title defense on January 4, 2015, at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome, in a four-way match against Forever Hooligans, Time Splitters and The Young Bucks. On February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka, reDRagon lost the title to The Young Bucks in a three-way match, also involving Time Splitters.
reDRagon returned to NJPW on May 3, 2015 at Wrestling Dontaku 2015, where they unsuccessfully challenged for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in a three-way match with Roppongi Vice (Beretta and Rocky Romero) and The Young Bucks. Later that month, Fish entered the 2015 Best of the Super Juniors. He finished second in his block with a record of five wins and two losses, narrowly missing advancement to the finals of the tournament. Following the tournament, reDRagon received a rematch for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in a three-way match, also involving Roppongi Vice, but were again defeated by The Young Bucks on July 5 at Dominion 7.5 in Osaka-jo Hall. On August 16, reDRagon defeated The Young Bucks to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship for the second time. They lost the title back to The Young Bucks in a four-way match on January 4, 2016, at Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome. On September 17 at Destruction in Tokyo, Fish received his first singles title shot in NJPW, when he unsuccessfully challenged Katsuyori Shibata for the NEVER Openweight Championship.
WWE
NXT (2017â€"present)
Bobby Fish made his debut in WWE's developmental territory NXT at the June 23, 2017 television tapings, losing to Aleister Black. Triple H confirmed Fish's signing on July 12.
At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III, Fish, alongside O'Reilly attacked SAnitY after they defeated The Authors of Pain to win the NXT Tag Team Championships. Later on in the night, the two assisted the debuting Adam Cole in attacking newly-crowned NXT Champion Drew McIntyre, turning Fish heel in the process. The following month, the trio of Fish, Cole and O'Reilly was officially dubbed "The Undisputed Era".On the September 27 episode of NXT, O'Reilly and Fish were at ringside when Cole defeated Eric Young. on the October 4 episode of NXT, After Roderick Strong's match with Drew McIntyre The Undisputed Era walk out and pat Roddy on the back.
Mixed martial arts
Fish trained with Jerrick Jones at Albany Boxing before his mixed martial arts debut on January 29, 2010. He had his first fight for the Cage Wars organization at the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany, New York and defeated Justin Pierpoint by technical knockout in the third round after Pierpoint suffered a broken nose at the end of the second.
In wrestling
- Finishing moves
- Fish Hook Deluxe Edition (Heel hook)
- Flying Fish Hook (High knee)
- Sleeping With The Fishes (Jumping spin kick)
- Double jump moonsault
- Diving headbutt
- Sitout suplex slam, sometimes from the second rope
- Signature moves
- Space Rolling Elbow (Cartwheel back elbow to a cornered opponent)
- Crossface
- Сross armbreaker, sometimes rolling
- Dragon screw
- Fireman's carry double knee gutbuster
- Flying cross chop
- Frankensteiner
- Gorilla press double knee gutbuster
- Inverted atomic drop
- Multiple kick variations
- Roundhouse
- Shoot
- Multiple suplex variations
- Exploder, sometimes into the corner
- German
- Saito, sometimes while hooking the opponent's leg
- Snap
- Samoan drop
- Slingshot somersault senton
- Springboard moonsault to the outside of the ring
- Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker
- Nicknames
- "The Burden"
- "The Infamous"
- "The Round Eye Samurai" (PWG)
- Entrance themes
- "Dance Away" by Damn Valentines (used while teaming with Kyle O'Reilly)
- "Behind Bars" by Auracle (NXT, June 23, 2017 - August 19, 2017)
- "Undisputed" by CFO$ (NXT, September 20, 2017 - present; used while a part of The Undisputed Era)
Championships and accomplishments
- Collision Pro Wrestling
- CPW Heavyweight Champion (1 time)
- High Risk Wrestling
- HRW Tag Team Championship (1 time) â€" with Kyle O'Reilly
- New England Championship Wrestling
- NECW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- New Japan Pro Wrestling
- IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (2 times) â€" with Kyle O'Reilly
- Super Jr. Tag Tournament (2014) â€" with Kyle O'Reilly
- Pro Wrestling Unscripted
- PWU Tag Team Champion (1 time) â€" with Scott Cardinal
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- PWI ranked him 26 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2016
- Ring of Honor
- ROH World Tag Team Championship (3 times) â€" with Kyle O'Reilly
- ROH World Television Championship (1 time)
- ROH World Television Championship #1 Contender Tournament (2015)
- Tag Wars Tournament (2014) â€" with Kyle O'Reilly
- Survival of the Fittest (2016)
- Upstate Pro Wrestling
- UPW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
References
See also
- reDRagon
External links
- Bobby Fish on Twitter
- Bobby Fish on WWE.com
- Bobby Fish's Ring of Honor profile
- Bobby Fish's New Japan Pro Wrestling profile
- Bobby Fish on IMDb
