Predicting The 10 Best Wrestlers In The World Five Years From Now
5. Will Ospreay*
Will Ospreay exhibited his potential as a heavyweight headliner throughout this year's G1 Climax tournament, in which he performed as something even greater than the more refined, physical evolution of the junior that once broke Twitter.
He cracked Okada with a chop so disgusting, and so hard, that it sounded like the blast of a rifle. He worked a sumptuous match with Zack Sabre, Jr. in which he proved himself almost as capable on the mat as the best technical wrestler on the planet. With chops harder than WALTER and technique equivalent to the man Daniel Bryan believes has surpassed him, Ospreay on this evidence might become the best version of every great wrestler five years from now. And beyond the learnable techniques, Ospreay has honed the intangibles only the truly gifted possess with his ability to sell the effects of war to very emotional effect. His BOSJ victory over Shingo Takagi was the work of a master.
The asterisk, of course, is Ospreay's unbridled drive and how little regard he has for his own pain threshold. Ospreay feels so vitalised in that ring that it sustains him. His words sound dangerously close to an addiction - and the sort of very real danger to which Ospreay is addicted is toxic, long-term.