MLW Fusion: Riddle Confronts Bishop Amid Kross-Kojima Chaos

MLW Fusion delivered a chaotic go-home segment on the episode that aired July 25 on YouTube, as a scheduled contract signing between Killer Kross and Satoshi Kojima devolved into a brawl-adjacent standoff before Matt Riddle stepped in to call out Josh Bishop.

The signing was meant to formalize the terms of the Kross-Kojima showdown, but it never got the chance to play out cleanly. Josh Bishop, Donovan Dijak, Bishop Dyer, and Austin Aries all made their way out to disrupt the proceedings, turning what should have been a straightforward promotional segment into a numbers-game confrontation. With that faction flooding the area, Riddle used the opportunity to single out Bishop directly, laying down a challenge for the two to settle things in the ring.

It’s the kind of interference-heavy storytelling MLW has leaned on for years to build stakes heading into pay-per-view style events, stacking multiple grudges and factional beefs into one combustible segment rather than letting singles feuds breathe in isolation. Aries in particular has increasingly positioned himself as a de facto mouthpiece and agitator for this stable, lending veteran credibility to Dijak, Dyer, and Bishop as MLW builds out its upper midcard.

For Kross and Kojima, the disruption only raises the temperature on a match that already carried plenty of prestige given Kojima’s decorated résumé across New Japan and beyond, paired against Kross’s reputation as one of the most physically imposing presences on the independent and MLW scene. A contract signing getting hijacked is a familiar trope, but it does its job here: it signals that whatever match ultimately gets made won’t be contained to just the two men originally advertised.

Riddle’s insertion into the Bishop rivalry adds another layer for MLW to work with. Riddle has spent the past several months bouncing around the independent scene since his WWE departure, and his willingness to plant a flag against Bishop suggests promotion is banking on his name value to elevate whatever program develops between the two. Bishop, for his part, has been aligned with Dijak, Dyer, and Aries in what looks like a coordinated push to make that group a dominant force on Fusion going forward.

What happens next depends largely on how MLW books the fallout — whether Kross and Kojima still get their contracted match, whether Riddle and Bishop end up in a program of their own, or whether the promotion folds all of it into one larger blowoff show. Given how much MLW has invested in cross-promotional star power in recent years, expect the company to milk this convergence of storylines for as long as it can sustain the heat.

Fusion continues to serve as the company’s primary vehicle for advancing these rivalries on a weekly basis, and this episode made clear that the roster’s various factions are far from done colliding with one another.