Will Ospreay: I Hate The Idea Of People Telling Me What To Do In My Matches
Will Ospreay explains his approach to putting together his matches.
At AEW Forbidden Door, Will Ospreay will face off against Swerve Strickland in the finals of the Owen Hart Cup. Ospreay is widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers, and he recently explained how he plans his matches.
Speaking with Baby Huey on 107.7 The Bone, Ospreay was asked about his approach to producing a match, whether he plans the bout around his own vision and his opponent has to adapt, or he collaborates with them and tries to come up with a match together.
“I’m on that wavelength more (collaborating more with the opponent). I hate the idea of people coming into my matches and just telling me, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ That pisses me off more than anything. Because for me, wrestling is a little bit like a team sport. Behind the curtain, wrestling is like team mentality and if you don’t have that team mentality, you’ll find friction behind the boys and the girls. So I’m very much along the lines of like I’m a collaborative person when I do my stuff.
I come in with ideas. I say, ‘This is kind of what I’m thinking.’ I want their thoughts, their feelings and then give their points. Then we find clever ways of meshing it together. There’s aspects of the job where I think so detailed about why this move belongs here, why it doesn’t belong here and like I shouldn’t be able to do this at this point. Because in my younger years, I was just eager to get out there and do it. But then once I got to Japan, it was all about the psychology, knowing how to break down these moves, why they were so important and why like you shouldn’t be able to do this point at this part of the match because you need to show the exhaustion and show the story beats of the match.
It’s more than just putting moves together for the sake of moves together. It’s taking the audience on a ride of a roller coaster. Like, go to Disneyland by any chance, you’re a dizzy world. One of my favorite rides that they got there is the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. They take you on a story. It’s not just a ride. It’s like a whole going around that big old globe. It’s just like, you’re having a good time. That’s exactly how I think about wrestling matches. I see where I am in the card and I think, ‘All right, who’s on before me? What can I do differently?’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ospreay says he only has a few years of natural athleticism left before he’ll have to tone things down in the wrestling. Fans can read his full comments about this here.
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