Why Did I Binge Watch Will Ospreay Matches?
My motives are pure. This I assure you. I have been a pro wrestling fan for over forty years and I love it. Professional wrestling has been an important part of my life. I did not have a pro sports team where I lived so, in many ways, my regional wrestling promotion (Southeastern Championship Wrestling) was my “home team”.
I watched the Hulk-A-Mania years come and go. I lived through the national expansion. I pushed through the dim, dark years of the early 1990s and survived the scandals. I started my own independent wrestling promotion, wrestled some (I was awful at it), announced, commentated, started my own newsletter (dirt sheet!), and was an early adopter of the internet before settling into my true passion of being a pro wrestling historian. I am DragonKingKarl, pro wrestling historian, and I am not ashamed of that. I love it. I love discovering new stuff about pro wrestling history. If you’ve written a book on pro wrestling history, I’ve probably read it. I have loved pro wrestling almost as long as I’ve been alive and that is a perfectly OK thing to do and, to quote the Joker from last years movie, “I'm tired of pretending it's not.”
So, it suffers me to say that over the last ten years, my passion for pro wrestling has died a slow death. I’m not trying to offend any fans of any style or promotion, god knows wrestling needs as many fans as it can find nowadays, but I largely blame WWE for this, but not entirely.
How Did Pro Wrestling Kill My Passion?
The death of WCW took some of the wind out of my fandom. WCW was the successor to Jim Crockett Promotions, and in many ways, the old NWA style of pro wrestling that I loved. When it died and was ultimately absorbed into WWE it took something out of me but I persevered. I watched as company after company tried to fill the void left behind by the implosion of WCW. Groups like WWA came and went. I watched TNA for years hoping it would eventually get it’s act together and give me something different. Instead, it only gave me a worse version of WWE. I had high hopes for AEW, but that’s another story for another day. NWA in it’s current version looks promising, I even have some friends there, but it has a long mountain to climb.
After the death of WCW and the failure of TNA (again, and again, and again…) WWE slowly destroyed my fandom, largely by their complete and utter disrespect of continuity. I have no desire to watch a television show where whatever happens on one episode doesn’t matter on the next one. Especially since you are asking me to invest THREE HOURS of my time on Monday, in addition to shows on Wednesday and Friday and specials, etc. All so you can forget or ignore what happened. Can you imagine the unmitigated gall of producing a movie or television show where the middle and ending disregards what happened in first act or episode? Well, WWE does it constantly and enough is enough.
How Did I Decide Upon Will Ospreay?
So, yesterday I had a rare day with little to do. I was caught up on our podcast recordings. House work was largely finished and our car was in the shop so I was home-bound for the day and looking for something to do. Recently, I had been noticing on Wrestling Observer Radio podcasts with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer that legendary wrestling writer Dave could absolutely not contain his joy whenever he talked about a wrestler named Will Ospreay.
I had certainly heard of Will Ospreay and even sampled a few of his matches before. In particular, I remembered he had a controversial match with the late Leon White (AKA: Vader) stemming from a Twitter feud (of all things) and that he looked pretty good in that match. I had also seen clips from his highspot-fest match with Ricochet that caused quite a stir a couple of years back. But Dave seemed to really, I mean REALLY be gushing over Will Ospreay recently.
In an effort to hopefully re-ignite my suffering fandom in pro wrestling and to discover what, exactly, all the fuss about Will Ospreay was about, I binge watched Will Ospreay matches for most of the day and here is what I learned.
I simply went to YouTube and looked for whatever complete Will Ospreay matches I could find from the past couple of years. I even made a playlist. Opponents included Will Ospreay’s mentor Amazing Red, current WWE star Ricochet, a big fellow who has generated a lot of buzz over the last few years himself, Walter, rising star Pete Dunn, the legendary Rey Mysterio, KUSHIDA, A-Kid (another person Dave Meltzer spoke highly of), Marty Scurll (who has quite a buzz now as well), and Kota Ibushi (whom Dave and others have often referred to as one of the best wrestlers in the world). This seems like a good idea.
Walter prepares to slam Will Ospreay.
What Did I Learn?
By the time I hit the third match I had already learned several things. The first one, I’m sorry to say, was not a positive. Current modern era pro wrestling fans can be distracting and take away from the experience. I can’t tell you how frustrating and annoying it is to hear, “This is awesome! Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” for the millionth time during a match when absolutely nothing has happened.
Ok Boomer, but back in my day, wrestling matches had heat because people were afraid the bad guy (heel) was going to beat or hurt the good guy (babyface). I happen to be one of the few old timers who believe that wrestling should outgrow the dated and simplistic Heel vs Babyface roles (other shows such as Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad, etc. regularly depict the protagonist as a bad person or, at least, a shade of grey). But still, this is simply the crowd becoming a participant in the match and not the background music that adds to the drama.
It’s as if instead of the Imperial March being played when Darth Vader enters the scene, John Williams himself shows up with an orchestra on the set and everybody, including Darth Vader, turns to applaud him. No thanks. It’s hard to get into the drama or flow of the match itself when the participants stop every few seconds to play to the crowd chanting, “You still got it”. So, lesson number one, modern fans can be annoying and take away from what otherwise might have been a good presentation.
The second thing I learned was that Will Ospreay is an amazing athlete. He really is a next level performer. Years ago, when I would see matches featuring Dynamite Kid, Tiger Mask, Jushin Liger, or Ultimo Dragon, if you asked me what wrestlers of that style might be doing in the year 2020 I would probably picture Will Ospreay. Will Ospreay really is the proper evolution of that style of wrestling.
The next thing I learned was that Will Ospreay can seemingly work a good match against just about any style of wrestler. I had already seen him get an entertaining match out of a beat up, physically destroyed Vader (even if Vader ruined it by not putting Will Ospreay over cleanly in the end). I was disappointed in his match with Amazing Red due to the crowd basically hijacking the match and the two constantly playing to them. It really took me out of this being, “a protege and a mentor fighting for a win in a prestigious tournament” into “a self-congratulatory love-fest”.
Likewise, I was underwhelmed by the Pro Wrestling World Cup finals between Will Ospreay and Ricochet. Although, I must say that Ricochet stood out as a big star in this match and it was demoralizing to see just how much shine WWE has taken off that diamond.
The 2018 Internet championship match against Walter is where I started to turn the corner on Will Ospreay. Again, this played to the story of Walter being bigger, stronger, and meaner than Will Ospreay, yet Ospreay used his speed, wit, and ability to hang with the brute Walter. I really gained a new respect for Will Ospreay during this match but I wasn’t yet to the Dave Meltzer explosive excitement level.
As I watched through the Pete Dunn, Rey Mysterio, and KUSHIDA matches I kept thinking, “Will Ospreay is an absolute next level wrestler. Smooth, athletic, and has a great ground game in addition to his amazing aerial assassin reputation… but…” But I kept feeling like something was missing and it had something to do with the presentation. What was it? What was missing?
The Presentation of Will Ospreay.
By the time I got to the Kota Ibushi match it all came together for me. It totally clicked. I finally understood what I liked about Will Ospreay, as well as, what was missing for an old school fan like myself. His gear looks great and I am a big stickler for pro wrestlers having professional looking gear. A major league wrestler should have a major league presentation and I really like Will Ospreay’s ring gear.
Was it the highspot heavy matches that were putting me off? Not really. Pro wrestling has always been influenced and inspired by whatever popular culture influenced the participants. As far back at the Frank Gotch era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, wrestlers were presenting themselves in a manner reflective of the circus performers, strongmen, physical culturists, and Vaudevillian performers of the day.
In the 1970s and 1980s wrestlers were influenced by music and movie stars. Dusty Rhodes was John Wayne, Hulk Hogan was, well, the Hulk, and so on. It should come as no surprise that pro wrestlers today have been influenced by video games. Modern pro wrestling takes as much from Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Skyrim, Final Fantasy, and the various pro wrestling video games as wrestling in the 1980s took from Rocky, John Wayne, Bruce Lee, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you’re watching pro wrestling in 2020 in the same context as Bill Watts or Dusty Rhodes in a John Wayne movie then you’re watching through eyes 30 years too old. What made sense to you in that context does not necessarily makes sense in a storytelling way to a twenty-something who grew up on loot boxes and unlimited lives and restarts…
… Thus the death of selling.
… Thus the death of selling. Yes, I saw very little serious selling in that Will Ospreay playlist and, despite what I just wrote, that is problematic to an extent, especially in the case of Will Ospreay. I don’t mind the video game inspired highspots. In fact, I rather enjoy them. But Will Ospreay looks so young. I know that’s an odd thing to say especially since he is, well, young. But that works against Will Ospreay, in my opinion given his style. In addition to the old school wrestling names I already mentioned, I also grew up on junior heavyweights like Dynamite Kid, Les Thornton, Jerry Brisco, and Adrian Street. And you know what? They all looked like they could kick your ass. Yes, even as an adult when I finally met Adrian Street he still scared me a little despite the fact I was a trained martial artist and outweighed him by a solid 100 pounds and stood at least a foot taller than him. I still wouldn’t have messed with him. I never met Les Thornton but I probably would have felt the same way.
This revelation dawned on me during the Kota Ibushi match. Why did I gravitate more toward Ibushi than Will Ospreay? Because, well Kota Ibushi looked… not meaner, that’s not the right word. He looked, more serious, more seasoned. Will Ospreay has a babyface yet wrestles a very dynamic and serious style. It’s like if Dynamite Kid looked like Ricky Morton… wait a minute.
How I Became a Fan of Will Ospreay.
Eureka! That’s it exactly! Not only had I grown up on Dynamite Kid, whom I would not mess with despite him being a foot shorter than me. Not only had I grown up on Jerry Brisco who I’m certain could tie me into a knot, I also grew up on Ricky Morton! Ricky Morton of the Hall of Fame Rock & Roll Express tag team was probably one of the best sellers in the history of the pro wrestling business. Selling, for those uninitiated in wrestling lingo, means to act as if the attack happening to you actually hurts. If someone kicks your leg, you limp, if someone wrenches your arm, you grab it, if someone drags your face across a concrete studio floor on national television you go to the back and use dry sandpaper to scrape the skin off your face… I am not making that last one up. You SELL it!
The only missing ingredient in the presentation of Will Ospreay is a little more selling. A little more drama that this high-flying machine, this aerial assassin might actually be in danger from time to time. He has the face to sell drama to the fans. The ladies at ringside used to live and die with poor babyface Ricky Morton grimacing in pain. It added a high level of drama to the match. Not to say that Will Ospreay doesn’t sell, he does, but in a very Skyrim sort of way where you shake off that thing that just happened to you and move onto the next impressive highspot.
When it finally dawned on me that the target audience isn’t near fifty-year-old geeks like me who grew up on Sylvester Stallone’s, “Yo, Adrian! We did it!” or watching the overwrought melodrama of every sappy feel-good sitcom on weeknights, it was actually twenty to thirty-somethings who grew up on the adrenaline of Grand Theft Auto, I had an epiphany.
Maybe This Isn’t For Me Anymore… or Maybe It Is.
We don’t have to grow old and bitter. Sometimes things change for the better, sometimes for the worse and in the case of pro wrestling, it’s a mixture of both. Will Ospreay helped me discover this. Will Ospreay and this generation of daredevil, fast paced, highspot heavy pro wrestlers fly better, farther, and faster than the wrestlers of my generation. Will Ospreay and this generation do things that even Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask couldn’t have conceived of in the 1980s. When I marveled at the futuristic moves of Jushin “Thunder” Liger in the 1990s, I couldn’t have known just how far wrestlers like Will Ospreay would push the boundaries in this era. Did pro wrestling lose some of it’s drama? Yes, I think so, but I just keep trying to remember, my day has passed and this era is for a new set of eyes. Eyes that have seen different influences than mine did. Eyes that have seen the world move faster and thus, the art of this era should reflect that. That’s what art is, after all, it’s an emotional expression of the experiences of a generation. So, perhaps it’s time those from my generation stopped lamenting what was and start enjoying what is. And that is how I became a fan of Will Ospreay and I don’t think I disrespected Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, or anyone else by doing so.
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