NJPW’s Will Ospreay Felt Nothing During Wrestle Kingdom

NJPW

Will Ospreay recently competed in the co-main event at Wrestle Kingdom 17 facing AEW’s Kenny Omega and receiving wide praise for the match.

The encounter would see Ospreay lose the IWGP United States title but cement his place as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, with Dave Meltzer giving the bout a high star rating.

Ospreay, however, recently reflected on an entirely different reaction to Wrestle Kingdom 16 in which he would face Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.

Speaking on The Session with Renee Paquette, Ospreay spoke about the impact COVID-19 had on his passion for the wrestling business, saying:

“For the last three years, I do feel I’ve been on auto-pilot a little bit. I remember last year’s Wrestle Kingdom, and Great-O-Khan is massaging my shoulders just as I’m about to go out and he goes ‘how are you feeling?’

“And I went ‘I feel nothing’ because honestly, it was one of those where even though it was the main event of the Tokyo Dome, it wasn’t the real thing. It wasn’t the real experience.”

In any other year, Ospreay vs Okada would have been a match that would have received the best possible reaction from a New Japan audience, but the strict pandemic restrictions put paid to that, with Ospreay saying:

“It’s heartbreaking, but I tried to see it almost like a game where I was like ‘okay I’m going to be so good, that I make you make noise.’

“I saw it like that but you can only play that game now and again before it becomes tedious and tiresome.”

He would look at how New Japan had built itself in 2019, only to have it all taken away, concluding:

“It was heartbreaking at points because I really did feel like I was doing the best work I’ve ever done, and it was kind of going under the radar because I’m not on national TV. I’m not on weekly TV.

“New Japan at one point was the hottest thing going. When 2019 came in, all of our arenas were sold out. It was the best G1 we’d ever done, we performed at Madison Square Garden.

All systems were go and then that f**king pandemic came.”

At Wrestle Kingdom 17, fans were once more able to cheer, which was a change to the previous “clap-crowds”, as Ospreay would note:

“I don’t know anyone who likes watching clap-crowds at all. I want to hear the people, I want to engage with them, and for three years, it’s felt like I was in a prison. So it was really nice to let the doors open and let them all make noise again.”

Ospreay would conclude by looking at the reaction he received from the NJPW crowd at Wrestle Kingdom 17, saying:

“Getting to walk out there [this year] to my music, to be in my own skin again, it felt like the old me.

“To do it on that platform, it felt like, for the first time that the eyes of the wrestling world were really on me.”

Will Ospreay signed with NJPW in April 2016 and recently spoke about his work ethic, finances and more since joining the company.

Transcript from SEScoops.

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• Wrestle Kingdom
• NJPW
• Will Ospreay

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