The Rise and Retribution of Will Ospreay

By: Jeremy Peeples

Will Ospreay’s rise over the past decade has been something that will be studied for generations to come because of how unique his rise to fame and glory have been – and the nature of the business changing over time when compared to other high-workrate pro wrestlers that have seen international success. Puroresu has seen icons like Stan Hansen and the Funk brothers bring their own unique styles to both All Japan and New Japan over the past five decades, while the Dynamite Kid’s legendary series of high-flying and mat-based matches with Tiger Mask spanned both Japan and America with his rise being steady as he traveled throughout Canada, England, Japan, and even Madison Square Garden. In looking at both men’s careers, there are a lot of parallels.

Ospreay’s rise through PROGRESS led him to RevPro, whose working agreement with New Japan opened doors for him in ways that no one could have predicted. With his first match against Okada at Global Wars UK in 2015, he couldn’t have asked for a better dance partner because at any point in the past decade, if you wanted to raise someone’s stature – a singles match with Okada was a great way to do it. He excelled in defeat and wound up seeing his stock rise with New Japan in the junior heavyweight division. There, his work with Ricochet in the Best of the Super Juniors led to them becoming the stuff of online legend with a flip-based approach to both mens’ offense and defense being polarizing – but allowing each to gain an audience beyond the pro wrestling world thanks to clips of the match going viral.

I thought I really started coming into my own during the BOSJ 2019, and to climax that with the match against Shingo Takagi… I feel like that was the moment I’d found my footing in New Japan, and became the monster I am now.

Will Ospreay in an interview with MP on the match that took him to “the next level”.

It was a big Best of the Super Juniors tournament for Ospreay as he went to the finals and pissed Vader off at the same time. This led to something that no one could have really seen coming – an actual match between Vader and Will Ospreay in a battle of a past puro legend with a future legend at the time in Ospreay. The match itself was hurt greatly by Vader’s physical limitations at 60, but Ospreay did all he could to make the match good and showed that he had a lot more versatility than many predicted – because his fast-paced style had to change for that high-profile match and it allowed him to turn a theoretical loss into a long-term win.

Much like Dynamite Kid’s legendary series with Tiger Mask, Ospreay has had classic rivalries already – with Ricochet being his first big rivalry, and then moving onto Kenny Omega, where they have had classics at both NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 and AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door 2023. Each rivalry showed the evolution of Ospreay’s style as he went from largely being a flashy flyer with Ricochet to a more grounded offense in both Omega matches while still throwing some high-flying moves in the mix like a skytwister press to the floor. In the case of both of those series of matches, Ospreay was able to blow people’s minds with what he did.

Seeing him rise from being a pure junior heavyweight into then being the NEVER Openweight Champion and then rise to the IWGP World Title-level has been incredible because he’s one of the very few acts historically to do that. Dynamite Kid, Jushin Liger, and to a lesser extent, Wild Pegasus, would be acts that could in theory work in either division – but until the past decade, New Japan has largely kept those divisions completely separate without much crossover or shifting from junior to heavyweight. In recent times, we have seen Kenny Omega break that mold alongside Shingo Takagi, but no one has quite mastered the art of both distinct styles like Will Ospreay.

Dynamite Kid excelled at a hard-hitting style with a forceful method of flying – everything he did was explosive and wasn’t meant to be visually-pleasing. His flying dropkicks were flatback and intense while diving headbutts lacked the grace we would later see from Chris Benoit or Bryan Danielson – but were also meant to serve a different purpose. Even jacked up on bovine steroids, he was stuck in no-man’s land because he was big for a junior and small for a heavyweight anywhere and his ability to get a singles push was hurt by the era he was in. Dynamite’s style was one that is still being used today and you can watch any of his best matches and see a prototype for the modern high-effort or high-workrate style across the world now.

Ospreay’s claim to fame as having the most “five star” matches in history also shines an interesting light on how matches were viewed in different eras. In Dynamite Kid’s day, Japanese wrestling TV shows would largely be clipped matches with some being shown complete or released on commercial tapes. House shows weren’t taped and a scant few would have photos released, let alone handheld video released to show how good the matches truly were. When you consider the road schedule wrestlers had, their TV time would maybe be 5% of their total in-ring output and now, the overwhelming majority of a New Japan wrestler’s work can be visible in video form – at least in the streaming era. It’s a blessing as a fan, but if you’re in the ring, it’s easy to see it as a curse to have so much of your work out there to be scrutinized and torn apart frame-by-frame.

Everyone I wrestle and every championship I hold, I elevate. Arenas in Japan sell out when I’m in high-profile singles matches. I’ve become the most trusted wrestler in terms of helping grow this next generation in New Japan and on the British independent wrestling scene. I take pride in that because that’s the level my heroes like AJ Styles were at. So if people haven’t got the attention span to pay attention to my matches–it’s cool–it doesn’t keep me up at all, because the people I work for are always happy with my work.

Will Ospreay in an interview with MP, on his growth as a performer since 2015.

When there’s an entire subculture of a fanbase out to find flaws, it’s easy to focus on them and one thing that Will Ospreay has that many wrestlers of the past didn’t have is working in an era where mental health matters and taking care of it isn’t seen as a flaw. Ospreay has been open about struggling with depression over the years and in doing so, definitely played to a different type of wrestler toughness – making himself a better person in the long-run. Ospreay has put a far greater priority in knowing his physical and mental limits than most in a similar role in prior generations. He definitely benefits from the business not being pay to play anymore. In prior eras, if you missed time, you missed pay – so guys would work hurt and either get crippled up later in life or risk massive painkiller addictions.

I wouldn’t say it’s helped me at all, it’s more just been a voice in my brain saying that I’m not good enough to hang with my peers. Maybe it’s held me back from certain opportunities that I should’ve taken, but my brain got the better of me. It’s always been a horrible struggle that I can’t really can’t put into words, sometimes I don’t wanna get out of bed because of the stress of delivering for fans, and for my family, or looking after my friends. I don’t have it as bad anymore as I feel very comfortable and I’ve found my groove. But every now and again it creeps up. The match against Kenny Omega at the Tokyo Dome, I remember feeling completely sick and my anxiety was horrible that day.

Will Ospreay in an interview with MP, on how his mental health has affected his wrestling career.

Will Ospreay being a part of a generation that prioritizes their long-term health as much as possible has served him well and it’s now even a part of his AEW character that he’s been told by veterans like Chris Jericho to work a more tempered style for longevity and it has proved to be something that has worked out wonderfully for him. It’s allowed him to have a longer career than a lot of balls-out wrestlers while evolving his style and keeping the high-effort approach to his matches. It’s very easy to see an in-ring future for him like Tanahashi as long as his shoulder holds out where he is such a master of the craft that anything he can’t do physically can be made up for with sheer drama and playing the music between the notes – and that’s something he’s picked up a lot of with the United Empire.

Leading a faction has given him the ability to use his star power to be a dominant force on promos and elevate members of the United Empire to new heights – which is a rarity from someone in a workhorse position. AJ Styles and Kenny Omega did it within the past decade and Ospreay is a perfect successor to that throne. Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher have seen their stars shine with him, partially due to injuries slotting them in his matches, and the Great O-Khan has become someone New Japan can slot pretty much anywhere thanks to the ever-present threat the United Empire faces to anyone. In a little over a decade, he has already created a hall of fame-worthy career and it should only get better as time goes on and he gains more experience and picks up more little tricks to make his work even better.