7 Ups & 5 Downs From NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 (Review)
2. Will Ospreay (c) vs. Kenny Omega (with Don Callis)
Every bit the epic it promised and then some, the Wrestle Kingdom semi-main made it incredibly difficult for actual headliners Jay White and Kazuchika Okada to follow 2023's first bona fide classic.
Will Ospreay and once-again IWGP United States Champion Kenny Omega had their own names and reputations to live up to, but did so in grandiose and bloody fashion across 35 absorbing minutes that simultaneously left everything in the ring and left plenty more for a potential sequel.
Omega used the build to attack the mental strength of Ospreay, and used the match itself to literally go for his head. First clattering him through a table - or more specifically clattering the table through him - Omega took the worst of what Ospreay had to offer before unlocking an evil, neck-dropping, V-Trigger-spamming God Mode barely visible since he last graced the Dome in 2019.
Ospreay's final fight back was game, but simply not enough - with sickening science, Omega had simply extracted too much from his younger rival. Snap dragons, turnbuckle DDTs et al generated instinct kickouts but spitting in Kenny's face earned a One Winged Angel and a painful loss.