Will Ospreay turned down the WWE’s offer for a contract in 2016, which turned out to be the best thing he could have done.
The Englishman was one of the top young stars in wrestling at the time. His high-flying, almost dangerous style had drawn him a huge amount of fans, as well as a large amount of detractors.
One of these was the legendary Vader. The American wrestler criticised Ospreay’s BOSJ match with Ricochet, which led to a match between Will Ospreay and Vader in RevPro.
He impressed so much in England and Japan that he was recruited by William Regal to join the WWE. The legendary wrestler wanted Ospreay to join the company to be a part of the Cruiserweight Classic.
He revealed in an interview with Chris Van Vilet that he was offered a spot in the tournament by fellow Englishman William Regal, and that he was even keen on competing in it. However, he had agreed to wrestle for New Japan in the April of that year which would have caused a conflict of interest for himself in WWE.
Fellow NJPW wrestlers Kota Ibushi and Zack Sabre Jr appeared in the Cruiserweight Classic, both making it to the semi-finals before being defeated by TJ Perkins and Gran Metalik, respectively.
“Yes I was [close], but not really. Like nowhere near, to be honest. It was just phone calls, it was just like [William] Regal called me while I was filming a commercial for Virgin Trains or something like that. And he was just like, ‘Do you fancy doing the Cruiserweight Classic, we have this tournament happening, you’ve got to be under 205 lbs.’ And I was like, ‘I mean, I’m interested yeah but I am going to New Japan in April.'”
” And there was nothing signed saying that I was legally New Japan’s property at that time, it was just, ‘Yeah, I’m doing this, would you have a problem if I did New Japan?’ And then Regal just drops the one line where he’s like, ‘Let me ask Triple H and I’ll get right back to you.’ And me being the kid, I’m like, ‘What the f**k is going on?’”
“So it was just one of those things where Regal asked Triple H, and he was like ‘Yeah, I’m fine with him doing New Japan, I’m fine with him doing the Super Juniors and then he can come do the Cruiserweight Classic, and then he’s free to do what he wants to do.’”
“But then as it started getting closer to April, there was a call in February — no, March, in fact. And they said that they wanted me full-time, and I would have to go over there and be a part of the system. And I kind of wasn’t ready for that, for me.”
Instead, Will Ospreay rejected WWE and took the booking with NJPW instead. This was clearly the best move possible as he became a huge star with the promotion, wrestling his own style of wrestling rather than being restricted to the WWE’s idea of what it should be.
Obviously, he made the right call. Will Ospreay became a top star in NJPW. He is the only British wrestler to become their top champion, and now is one of the biggest stars in AEW.
