10 Wrestlers Who Are The Most Overrated At Precisely One Thing
6. Will Ospreay: Working Classic Matches
There's a potential misunderstanding to preempt here.
Will Ospreay, whether you like the man or not, is a phenomenal professional wrestler. If you think he's a glorified gymnast, you're frankly a moron. Gymnastics is a sport so strenuous that only the very gifted and committed can do it to a high level, for one, and Will Ospreay chops harder than WALTER. He is an excellent, top-tier professional wrestler in every aspect of the in-ring game: execution, storytelling, drama.
He is also capable of generating a deep emotional response through his tremendous psychology, but - and this is through no fault of his own - he has been unable to do this in New Japan Pro Wrestling for a number of years now because the fans are prohibited from cheering and reacting without inhibitions.
Ospreay's crushing G1 Climax loss to Kazuchika Okada this year almost worked as well as it did because of the restrictions, in that the drama was so powerful that the fans couldn't help themselves but break protocol. But still: effective crowd psychology is what drives a true pro wrestling classic, and the match would have been better had it played out in front of 10,000 people screaming themselves hoarse. Many of us extended latitude towards pandemic wrestling when there was no alternative to closed-set tapings, but it's hard to do the same thing in 2022 now that, watching wrestling from the west concurrently, we don't have to.
It's harsh, particularly since NJPW - albeit under duress - are doing the right thing. But what truly marks a classic wrestling match is the definitive feeling that you've just watched something undoubtedly special. A classic isn't bittersweet. A classic isn't something that could have been better, significantly so, than it was.
In the years to come, Ospreay's pandemic-era output will be considered the Avatar of pro wrestling: an outrageous technical achievement lacking in both soul and a cultural footprint.