8 Reasons Why Ricochet And Ospreay ARE Pro Wrestling

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you may not have heard that footage from a certain wrestling match in Japan caused significant online controversy, as a few GIFs representing some of the more acrobatic spots went viral.

The match took place at this year’s New Japan Pro Wrestling Best of the Super Juniors showcase, and featured Ricochet, an American twelve year veteran who may be the best high flyer in the business today, and a young pretender to that title from England by the name of Will Ospreay.

After the match, former scariest wrestler alive (Big Van) Vader saw those retweeted GIFs and chose to offer some constructive criticism via the balanced, rational mode of discourse that is Twitter. Since that was a joke, and Twitter is actually packed full of unaccountable keyboard warriors, delusional adolescent stalkers and sociopathic sh*t-flinging monkeys, his fairly reasonable, measured comments based on what little he’d seen were amplified via Chinese whispers into a booming out-of-touch voice screaming about psychology and storytelling from a place two decades ago.

Ricochet/Ospreay was a truly great match. It wasn’t perfect, but given the kind of talent and commitment on display, it feels practically churlish to nitpick.

Nitpicking, however, is not what’s been taking place. People have criticised every aspect of the style and presentation, including trashing both wrestlers on a personal and professional level. There’s even been talk - again - about this kind of wrestling ‘killing the business’...

First and foremost, there have been accusations that this was the spottiest of all possible spotfests: that no logical, psychologically sound storyline was taking place in the ring, and that the bout existed purely as a framework for a series of elaborate gymnastics and high-flying moves.

That’s a strange criticism to make, given that the match clearly told a tried and tested story throughout: two evenly matched men with a pre-existing professional rivalry, working a very similar style, competing for bragging rights as much as for points on a tournament bracket.

Ricochet was the arrogant veteran, a previous winner of the tournament looking to equal luminaries like Tiger Mask and Chris Benoit, who’d both won BoSJ twice. Ospreay was the tenacious up-and-comer, determined to make a name for himself against a world class opponent who seemed to be looking past him at that winged trophy. There’d be no elimination for the loser: this was purely a matter of points… and of pride.

That’s the reason for the flips and counters we all saw in the most prevalent of those viral GIFs. In the first couple of minutes, each man sought to outdo the other in a feeling out process, gauging their opponent’s speed and reflexes, testing the waters.

The sequence even climaxed with the classic ‘respect’ spot we’ve seen a thousand times over the last few decades, flavoured with a twist of the cinematic superhero pose: both men flipping off the ropes to land, crouched and ready, opposite one another like something out of Captain America: Civil War.

But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? It’s not that Ricochet and Ospreay weren’t telling a story, it’s that they didn’t do it in the way everyone’s used to.

That frenetic feeling out opening ending with that moment of acknowledgement, where the action stops for a moment to let the crowd breathe again and realise, with suddenly bated breath, the kind of match they’re about to witness: that’s wrestling 101, a staple of everything from WWE to ROH to New Japan and every single federation in between since the glory days of Bruno Sammartino.

Had that sequence been characterised by something more traditional - ninety seconds of ferocious chain wrestling, all counters and blistering grappling, followed by a face off and a laconic nod of mutual respect - no one would have had any kind of problem with it... and no one would have accused them of not telling a story in there.