flying high along the edge of a hidden blade

This is wrestling and the lines between what’s true, what’s reality and what’s neither is forever blurred.

Part of the gig in watching professional wrestling in any capacity is operating within a pigeon-holed dynamic where all we know without second-guessing is that we can never fully understand everything.  We’re immersed within a theatrical medium built off physicality, characters and the people behind them who give them life. Regardless of the former, the latter is what makes us care. The people are who hook us in.

A few years back I remember watching Sakura Genesis 2018 live. This was the NJPW show that Will Ospreay referred to in an interview last week when talking about the prospect of his neck injury keeping him out of the ring for the immediate future. At that point in 2018 I was a fan of him purely as an athlete who simply did amazing things in the ring that defied logic. Even more so, I remember watching those NJPW junior division runs when he was battling folks like Hiromu Takahashi, Dragon Lee, Marty Scurll and Kushida. However that night against Scurll they tried to do an apron Spanish Fly where it looked like Ospreay maybe held on to the ring rope too long and under-rotated. So when they were completing the move, Ospreay basically jammed his head and neck on the apron at a jarring angle.

That was the night I knew he was special. It was also the night I knew he was walking a fine line that was going to catch up with him one day. Now that we appear to be at that crossroads — the more I’ve learned about him, how he’s cared for the people close to him, grown up and found a family, coupled with what he has done in the ring as recently as Forbidden Door 2025 — the moment is more bitter than anything else.

This is wrestling. It’s theatre, but there are aspects that are very real that are undeniable. You could hear it in his voice, you could see it in his eyes during his Forbidden Door entrance, and you got the sense from Alex Windsor’s narrated letter to him over his pre-match video package that this is very real, and that the people who love him both in and out of the ring have his back.

One day we will see Ospreay back in the ring. I think one thing we all understand is the passion wrestlers possess to pursue wrestling as their life’s work isn’t easily snuffed out. They’re all daredevils in a way, choosing to risk themselves for something that grips them to their core and makes the decision for them that this is what they’re going to do with their lives.

Everyone who comes into the business is unique, forged along the way by their own experiences, who then decide how they want to wrestle and tell their stories their way. Some are more conservative than others, some are more dynamic, but the common denominator is the drive behind it. It’s what leads them down to ringsides around the world, that pushes them between the ropes, and possess them to tell their tales the way they do.

Ospreay’s “way” has flirted with danger his whole career. That’s so much the case that even though the inevitability of his style catching up to him was always looming, that the moment appears to be here brings no joy or satisfaction in being right. That’s especially so with him not just risking himself for his own ego anymore and instead bearing the responsibility of people who love him and what physically incapacitating himself means to them. How that affects their lives by association.

With the neck surgery seemingly closer than not, we need to appreciate his body of work and what he’s sacrificing then, now and later for choosing to write his story his way. Ospreay has been someone whose physical gifts have defied all logic. His unique agility has allowed him to flip more rotations than thought possible, twist and invert his body in illogical ways only to safely and effortlessly land the highest echelon of high-risk moves. He’s the guy who years ago took to the top rope in a match with Kota Ibushi, was flipped in a frankensteiner attempt only to land on his feet to the disbelief of most fans watching that morning. It’s been a high-spot that has been often duplicated since, (was probably done somewhere before,) but seeing it in that moment was magic.

The double-edged sword of living on your own terms carries the burden of accepting the catch-22 that the freedom you crave can also be your undoing. That’s the price, but the relativity of asking yourself the question of whether it’s worth it or not on a personal basis is going to have a varied set of answers. We’re all different, however for Ospreay I think the answer is pretty clear in the sense he’s never compromised himself and for that you need to respect him and what he’s brought to the table in this first act of his career.

Conversely, we have to respect the transformation of the reckless kid whose talents defied all logic for growing up into an adult that understands his body is finite and the last thing fans or his family want is to see him paralyzed. Even in going out one last time and writing the notes to his own music as Cody Rhodes once put it, there’s a responsibility in knowing it’s time to scale back, take care of himself and we assume adapt his style to be slightly less absurd when he returns to AEW.

And I think he will, because when you’re as passionate as he is about wrestling, that doesn’t go away and he’s already alluded to adapting in the way others who have suffered major injuries or have had to with age have done. He namedropped Jushin Liger and AJ Styles as examples. Regardless of what’s next I think Windsor’s narration sums up the entirety of Ospreay, his outlook on life, and the path he’s blazed so far:

“Will, you are going to be great tonight because that is who you are. I’ve heard the crowds chant your name, I’ve watched you win championships, but to me the biggest victories are the way you carried yourself through pain, through setbacks, through nights you wondered if you could keep going. You told me no mountain is too high, no opponent too strong if your heart refuses to quit. When I look at you I don’t just see Will Ospreay the wrestler. I see the man who kept chasing the impossible. You make England proud. You make our family proud. And if you’re not afraid of what’s next then neither am I. I love you Billy. Always.”

‘Attack for the next generation’

Those words were scrawled on the back of Ospreay’s robe he wore during his Forbidden Door entrance. What that means is in a life where too many people are afraid to challenge what’s accepted or what is the status quo understanding of any endeavour, we need people to ask those questions and fight those fights. We need people to challenge those conventions. We need people daring to fly to show us what’s possible if we are willing to try. Simple is easy, but to decide how you want to live and do something about it, that’s the hard part. That’s who Will Ospreay is. This is the person who has thrilled and soared high even under threat of crashing down. Stupid? Yeah, probably. Risky? Definitely. But if you ask him whether it’s been worth it, the answer would likely be “yes.”

Even so, the “hidden blade” of choosing that path and it being his own undoing is the reality of a life worth living. A career worth pursuing with goals worth fighting for. Agree or disagree with him, the inalienable truth is that he is unique, he is special and that the Ospreay we have known so far revolutionized both the junior and heavyweight divisions.

Ospreay made “impossible” a reality and defiantly proved if you believe you can do something no mountain is unscalable. That includes being an adult. That includes doing the right thing for himself, his family and the fans who have watched and worried for him his entire career. Finally that includes being daring enough to return as an evolved “Assassin” with grace, proving once more that the impossible is still obtainable if you’re willing to elevate yourself to the skies.