David Bridges
Will Ospreay is one of the most polarizing figures on the modern wrestling landscape. While his supporters regard him as one of the best in-ring workers in the world today, if not ever, he also has his share of detractors who knock his wrestling style and particularly matches like his famous encounter with Ricochet as too high spot-oriented or unrealistic. Moreover, Ospreay hasn’t shied away from controversy, standing up for himself and his merits as a performer in interviews and social media. This set of circumstances set up an unexpected war of words between him and former WWE and WCW World Champion Kevin Nash.
Kevin Nash Countered Claims About Will Ospreay’s Great Match Record
The wrestling Twitter account WrestleBanana pointed out over the weekend that Will Ospreay has had more five-star matches in a single month than legends CM Punk, John Cena, and Kurt Angle have combined for across their career (four to three). It is an impressive mark for those wrestlers and fans invested in star ratings. However, Kevin Nash was quick to point out a different measure of success when he replied “How’s his merchandise sales?”
Not to be upstaged, Ospreay harkened back to Nash’s long history of injuries, including repeatedly tearing his quad, asking if Big Daddy Cool had, in fact torn his quad in the process of tweeting.
Kevin Nash And Will Ospreay Clearly Have Different Outlooks On Wrestling
One need not watch more than one match from Kevin Nash and one from Will Ospreay to recognize their wholly different approaches to wrestling. Nash was a classic wrestling big man, working a relatively slow style, anchored around big moves like his powerbomb finisher, in direct contrast to Ospreay’s much faster paced, more acrobatic way of working in the ring. Nash even commented recently on a discussion with long-time friends Triple H and Shawn Michaels, in which he suggested NXT prospects needed to slow down more, and HBK tried to convince him the aesthetic of the business had changed. His clash with Ospreay feels representative of a similar debate.
In the end, there doesn’t necessarily seem to be any serious heat between Ospreay and Nash, as Ospreay even followed up, poking fun at Twitter culture on the whole for the meaningless criticisms and debates it encourages.
Kevin Nash has been very open in countless interviews that he always looked at wrestling as a business. With that mindset, it makes complete sense that merchandise numbers would be far more important than how many stars a match is awarded. To be fair, Will Ospreay seemed to demonstrate in this exchange that he also has a reasonable perspective, not taking his critics too seriously, and focusing instead on his own craft.
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Clara Hastings
