I’m going to be using quite a few sources and often first hand accounts, including Revolution Pro Wrestling owner Andy Quildan, as he is the man responsible for booking the match, and he communicated with both Ospreay and Vader. He is vital to this story, and he told his side on his own podcast back in 2019.
The story begins with a match that occurred in New Japan Pro Wrestling on May 27th 2016, on day six of that year's Best of the Super Juniors tournament. Will Ospreay would face Ricochet in a match that would have everybody talking, and would create a storm of mixed opinions. The debate all centered around a sequence early in the match, where the two men would present a highly choreographed routine filled with reversals, misdirections and counters, ending with the two performing stereo backflips into a superhero pose like you would see in a Marvel movie. To call the match polarizing feels like a bit of an understatement. It felt at the time, like everyone had to have a strong opinion one way or the other on the sequence. You had to either love it or despise it, and nothing in between. Even industry veterans were weighing in with their take, with the real winners being Ospreay and Ricochet, who had everybody talking about them. Speaking in an interview with Hishspots in August 2016, Ricochet said of his matches with Ospreay that they had created much debate over what wrestling even is when it happened, which is a nice way of saying that it caused a row or two on Twitter. *CLIP*
One surprising individual who chimed in online, was a man who was no stranger to New Japan. A former IWGP champion, and WCW champion. A man who had his own history of causing controversy in Japan, having caused a riot in Sumo Hall in December 1987 by destroying the beloved Antonio Inoki in the ring. The man they call Vader was none too impressed by the clip he had seen going around social media, and made his opinion known.
From looking at Vader's original tweet, his main criticism was built around the sequence more resembling a gymnastics routine than a contest. We’re not going to get bogged down in the argument here, but it is worth pointing out that in the thirty second clip that originally went viral, Vader is technically right about this. Whether you can apply it wider though is perhaps where the debate comes from. Though Vader said he saw the full match in a tweet, we can’t be sure if he ever actually did. We can’t even be sure that it would change his opinion either. Given how many other known figures in wrestling were also offering their opinions, I doubt Vader had any idea how far things would go, at least I did doubt that, until I heard Vader talk on an episode of Konnan’s podcast later in 2016. For what it’s worth, Vader himself told Konnan that he originally sent out his tweet largely to be a contrarian to all those he was seeing heaping praise on Ospreay and Ricochet. *CLIP K100*
Not one to take criticism quietly, Will Ospreay responded a day later, noting that he respects Vader, but didn’t appreciate what he said. According to Will in his Highspots interview, this tweet in particular offended him, and made him want nothing to do with Vader. Over the next few days he would also respond to positive comments from the likes of Jim Ross and Road Dogg, even at one point noting how he didn’t want to draw any attention to any of the negativity which was definitely out there also. He was however, playfully needling the legend by using the Vaderbomb in his matches in New Japan, and even using the hashtag Vader fears Ospreay.
Will was at the time developing a reputation for making the most out of what his critics said. To show you what I mean, in the following year Rip Rogers, another veteran and well regarded trainer in his own right, tweeted out a notes app rant about what he perceived to be every indie match, with one of the main criticisms being the repeated use of dives. This caught more attention when Randy Orton posted with apparent agreement, only accompanying Roger’s rant with “... Dive.” Ospreay wasn't about to let this go unchallenged, quickly having new merch made simply saying “... Dive” on it. This wouldn't be the last time Will would get into a public spat with a WWE roster member though.
On Vader’s side, he was very much up for debating the many fans who came back at him. While he had made the point that he thought Ospreay and Ricochet were talented, Vader still stood his ground on his point. He even responded to Will using the Vader bomb, accurately pointing out that it hits a bit differently when you're four hundred pounds. After what ended up being a few weeks of back and fourth between fans and each other, the two would begin to think about the prospect of having a match together.
The careers of both men
Before we go any further, let’s take a look at the careers of both Vader and Ospreay in mid 2016, as their paths were very different. Vader’s last match before this had been eleven months earlier at the Tulsa Oklahoma Fairgrounds. His opponents that night, the Steiner Brothers, who I imagine weren’t an easy night at the office even at their ages. The last time WWE audiences would have seen Vader was at the Hall of Fame ceremony earlier that year, where he inducted one of his most famous opponents, Stan Hansen. As far as I can tell, this might have been Vader’s final WWE appearance, only being inducted into the Hall of Fame himself in 2022, four years after his passing.
Weirdly, his last time wrestling on US television would be in June 2015 for Impact Wrestling, where he would face Bram, also known today as NWA’s Thomas Latimer. A few times, Vader would team up with his son Jesse White, who had been in WWE development for a while using the name Jake Carter. A match with someone on the up like Will Ospreay then might well have been what Vader wanted, to get the fans talking about him again, and maybe, the match might have stopped them complaining at him.
While you could say that Vader was on the downturn, certainly from his glory years, Will Ospreay was very much on his way up. He began the year as the champion of London based Progress Wrestling, a title that he won as part of a long built up storyline, and was his biggest up to that point. Well, that and being a two time Lucha Britannia World champion as the masked Dark Britannico. He would lose the Progress title in January to um, nah, not him. In early 2016 Ospreay also wrestled for Impact on their UK tour, and Evolve, making himself known to the US promotions already. On July 12th 2016, Will was present at an event put on by Inside the Ropes, the opening night of a speaking tour with guest Paul Heyman. On this night, in a clip that would make its way around online, Paul would call out Ospreay by name, and bring him onto the stage. Paul would present Ospreay with a contract that would make Evolve Wrestling his US home, that company having been founded by his former ECW employee Gabe Sapolsky. Ospreay was also promised that signing this contract would not affect his New Japan commitments. While this made for a fascinating moment, and it still is considering we’re looking at very much a WWE guy in Heyman, standing next to someone who has still never been there. Will had previously worked for Evolve earlier in the year on Wrestlemania weekend, but would only ever have one more match for them in 2018, electing to join Ring of Honor instead, who had a working agreement with New Japan.
Despite the Evolve offer, Ospreay’s biggest breakthrough had already happened not too long earlier, one that would eventually lead him to global recognition. On October 3rd 2015, Ospreay had wrestled Kazuchika Okada at Revolution Pro Wrestling’s Global Wars event. Rev Pro had a link with New Japan which still exists to this day, and this is how the match would take place. Okada, as well as Hiroshi Tanahashi who was also on the card that night, recommended the young Ospreay for New Japan, and he would make his in ring debut in April. If you’re curious Tanahashi would face Big Damo, the future Killian Dain that night who wouldn't receive such a recommendation. Just a few months later, Ospreay would take part in his first Best of the Super Juniors. Aye, that Best of the Super Juniors. Will would actually go on to win that year's tournament, but this has become a bit of a footnote to the waves that his match with Ricochet made.
How the match came to happen
On May 30th, after a few days of debating, Vader seemed to have had enough. He would tweet “it’s been a great three day holiday, let’s pretend this never happened.” If that's how things actually went down this video might be ending about now, don’t look at the run time. Over the next couple of weeks, Vader would continue to respond to fans. While there were some generally quite polite interactions, there were also a fair few rude ones as well. Admittedly, the discourse around the topic wasn’t exactly helping to calm things down. You also have to consider the personalities of the two people involved. As I noted Will wasn't one to back down, but neither was Vader. *CLIP not knowing when to stop*
According to Will Ospreay speaking in an interview with Highspots, he even says that he eventually had to block Vader, but the fans kept drawing his attention to Vader calling him out so much, that he had to unblock him to see what Vader was saying. He does note though, that he may have partaken in a bit of trolling too, not just using the Vader Bomb in matches, but allowing his opponents to kick out of it at one. Once the back an fourth had run it’s course, Ospreay says that Vader contacted Will himself, asking for an email. It was in a private exchange that Vader clarified that he had no real issue with Will, and he would ask for a match.
It’s hard to know when this actually took place as Will doesn’t specify, but publicly both men raised the possibility of a match on Twitter on June 17th 2016. Will is the first to tweet about it saying, “Just throwing it out there I would absolutely love to face Vader. People think I hate him but I don’t, I genuinely want this match.” Interestingly a lot of the replies seem to be all for it, remember that because it’ll become important. Later that day in Boulder Colorado, Vader offers a similar sentiment, tweeting “at this point I’m curious if you guys would pay to watch this match Ospreay vs Vader.” Coincidently, this happened to be the same day that Rev Pro promoter Andy Quildan sent Vader an initial email, presumably to the address Vader had been tweeting out days earlier. He also says that at this point he had already run it by Will, who was enthusiastic about the idea.
Realistically, this match seemingly could have taken place anywhere, as Will was very well travelled by this point, competing for at least twenty five promotions that year alone, and hardly any of them wouldn’t have booked a match with him vs Vader. Well, PWG maybe might not have booked Vader. The honour would eventually go to Rev Pro, as Ospreay had worked there since 2013, when the now thirteen year old company was just six months old. From Andy’s perspective, he’d booked a run of big events from York Hall, a dream match between Zack Sabre Junior and Kurt Angle in June, one of his biggest annual events Summer Sizzler in July where Zack would face Katsuyori Shibata, and now saw an opportunity to continue his momentum into August. He also saw an opportunity to take advantage of a trend that was going on at the time.
One interesting thing that Andy notes is that Vader had asked for what he called a “package deal”, which essentially means a rematch and potentially more down the road. On the same show where Vader vs Ospreay would happen, Andy also booked Ricochet against another British star on the rise who he wanted to build up as a heel. Enter Pete Dunne, who Ospreay had feuded with over the promotion’s Cruiserweight title. We’ll get into Andy's booking plans a bit more later, but looking to build his current roster off the back of the story, Andy was laying the groundwork for a potential tag team match of Ospreay and Ricochet against Vader and Dunne. Pete would even have a Vader style singlet made, which despite the tag match never happening, he would wear in the ring on indie shows. Dunne would introduce the singlet in the ring during a six man tag that Ospreay was also a part of in January 2017. Will would react by clocking him in the face. While Vader seemed to want a three match series, Andy had other ideas, especially once Vader actually arrived in the UK. In March 2024 on an episode of Talk is Jericho, Will Ospreay had a less polite way of wording it.
After several weeks of back and forth email between Andy and Vader, some of which he reads on his podcast, on XX it seems that Vader would get impatient with Andy. He would tweet this before the match could be officially announced.
On the morning of June 26th UK time, Rev Pro would officially announce the match for Uprising on August 12th, just six weeks away. While the replies to the initial tweet don’t seem all that critical, Andy doesn’t remember it that way at all. There were fans that were not only revolting against Rev Pro, but directing their complaints directly at Andy himself, openly telling him that they hoped the show would fail. There wasn't much hope of that though, with over a thousand one hundred tickets gone a month away from the show, and just ten left a couple of weeks before. By the night of Friday August 12th, every ticket for York Hall was gone.
Not all of the planning for the event was a success though. Andy talks in the podcast about wanting to plan a special event the day before, where Will and Vader would debate in person before the match, and fans would get a photograph in between the two. Shockingly, there wasn’t much demand for fans to stand next to Vader, who famously never washed his gear even in his more active days. While I’m joking, the real reason that the face to face was cancelled likely had something to do with it being announced only a couple of weeks before the show, with not a lot of time for fans to add it to their plans, on a weekday as well.
One more quite interesting thing that Andy talks about before getting to the night of the match are the conversations that he and Vader would have on the phone. Andy said that he and Vader would talk for hours, mainly about his long and varied career. Around this time, Mick Foley had written Vader a foreword for an autobiography that he was working on, and Vader was so proud of this, that he read it on the phone to Andy not once, but twice.
Killing any kayfabe that might have been left, he also says that Vader would compare Will Ospreay favourably to one of his greatest opponents, that being Sting. Vader had plenty of ideas for their match that were reminiscent of their classic matches in WCW. Andy also claims that Vader would in the lead up to the match send Andy photos of him training, with the intent of showing that he was getting into shape for the match. All of this fell through though when Andy received correspondence from the airline to the contrary, requesting a wheelchair for access in the airport. *CLIP chronicles 1:25) This brings me back to that package deal that Vader wanted for at least one return match. Andy Quildan would say that any potential plans for a future rematch would go out of the window once Vader arrived in the UK. It was very clear that Vader wouldn’t be able to do this, and was more physically limited than he let on.
And so we finally get to Uprising on August 12th 2016. The card was very much stacked, with Ricochet vs Dunne, Chris Hero in action against err, no still not him, and a British Heavyweight title match where Zack Sabre Junior defended against Jeff Cobb Mateo. Part of the intrigue of the night was always going to be what Vader looked like walking to York Hall. When Vader had wrestled for Impact a year earlier, he bore very little resemblance to the mastodon he used to be presented as. Andy tells us that not only did he attempt to get Vader to bring that fucking massive helmet he used to wear, but he also attempted to convince Vader to try his best to turn the clock back a bit. *CLIP helmet and gear*
So Andy says that Vader was walking around backstage looking the part, but was mortified when the man himself came through the curtain wearing a ragged t-shirt with holes, and even more so when the first thing he did was remove his famous mask. It didn’t matter to the twelve hundred in York Hall though, who gave Vader a monstrous reaction, and gave their local hero an equally fitting welcome.
The Match
Vader is the first man to enter to his WWE theme. From the moment we hear Vader’s voice at the start of the song shouting “It’s Vader Time,” loud chants of “Fuck you Vader” can also be heard. Ospreay doesn’t do his regular flashy entrance, choosing to pace right down the walkway to stare down his online rival. Vader requests the microphone as he would like to cut a promo, and if you look closely we can see Andy, who is also the ring announcer, turn him down initially. Vader is persistent though, and Andy relents, something that looking back he says he was happy about after hearing Vader. To be honest with you, I don’t blame Andy for his skepticism.
The prevailing opinion of most who saw the match, Andy included, seemed to be “Ospreay got him through it”, but what does that mean exactly? Before the match can even start the two have a tense staredown. The two begin fighting before the bell has rung, and when referee Chris Roberts tried to stop this, Vader shoves him down, meaning the match hasn’t actually started yet. This allows the action to spill out of the ring immediately, possibly even breaking Triple H and Undertaker’s record at Wrestlemania twenty-seven. Security tries to hold Vader back, which buys Ospreay some time to get a running start off the ramp, launching at Vader and what would become a pile of other blokes.
The two battle back up the walkway, and Vader chokeslams Ospreay off the ramp, and onto a platform at Andy Quildan’s feet at commentary. As Vader lurches back to the ring, medics check on Will, even putting him in a neck brace, teasing that the whole thing is over before it has a chance to begin. Despite all advice though, Ospreay throws the brace off and crawls to the ring. He pulls himself under the bottom rope, then to his feet, and the match officially starts.
The chaos before the bell allowed Vader to continue at his own pace while Will recovers from the previous attack. Ospreay takes a rather slow beatdown for a few moments, until he is able to come back with a handspring kick that the crowd roars for. He then hits a springboard off the top rope and nearly floors Vader. Interestingly given how this whole thing came to be, it takes Vader a fair while to go for his first pin attempt, which is Ironic really.
Vader argues with the referee’s count, leading Ospreay to dropkick him into the ref, knocking him down again. As Will climbs to the top rope, Pete Dunne’s music hits, and he attacks from the crowd. Pete levels Ospreay, and shakes Vader's hand as the crowd boo. This allows Ricochet to run in, coming to Will’s aid, and we even see the two double team Vader, which is a rather insane image when you think about it. The match is complete carnage at this point with Dunne and Ricochet brawling outside the ring, but the crowd are very much into it. Vader hits a chokeslam that Ospreay kicks out of at one, but he does not kick out of a second. Vader actually defeats Will Ospreay, but there are plenty of reasons why. To put it more accurately, Will Ospreay doesn’t lose the match, but Pete Dunne wins it for Vader. The show ends with Ricochet and Andy Quildan checking on Ospreay, while Pete Dunne helps his new Dad up the stairs of the entrance way.
It seemed to many curious that Vader would get the victory, but as you might expect, where’s a story to that. Andy claims that until the week of the event, Will Ospreay was supposed to win the match, but eventually Vader had other plans. *CLIP chron 1:27*.
Once Vader has left, and the crowd has finished chanting “that was bullshit”, Will Ospreay takes the microphone. He tells the crowd that he might have failed them, but he was coming for revenge against Dunne. He also makes time to also tell them not to expect a rematch, and given what he said on Jericho’s podcast years later, he clearly meant that. However you feel about the match, the fact that it was booked or the fact that Vader won, At least Rev Pro had the foresight to try and get Vader’s heat onto someone else, and use that to build to a later match down the road. A match that Vader didn’t have to be booked for.
Aftermath
After Uprising 2016, Will Ospreay’s career would continue to rise. Two weeks later Will would have another match with Pete Dunne, where he would retain his British Cruiserweight title. He would end the year with a very brief run as Ring of Honor television champion. A two day run in fact, winning and losing the title during an ROH UK tour. He would start 2017 by competing for the first time in the Tokyo Dome. At Wrestle Kingdom eleven he would along with Jado and Yoshi-Hashi, lose a match for the Never Openweight six man tag team titles. He would avenge the loss, and poor placement on the card by winning the Junior Heavyweight title in the dome the next year. Having won the 2016 Best of the Super Juniors, the next year Will would win his block, but lose in the final to Kushida. Later in the year though he would win a rematch, and his first title in New Japan, his first of three Junior Heavyweight titles.
But what of the rest of Vader’s time in the UK? On Andy’s podcast he goes into quite a bit of detail about some Comic Con appearances that were lined up. These were apparently set up with Steve Lynsky, a British referee who became Vader’s handler of sorts for the next leg of his tour. Vader would end up missing some of the dates he was advertised for, mainly because he and Steve never really got on.
On August 14th, two days after Uprising, Vader would actually wrestle a second match in England for XWA in Essex. On a night that also included many other wrestlers who would go on to work for WWE and some other pretty well known names too, Vader would defeat this bloke, Sid Scala.
.
The side feud between Vader and Sid Scala is an interesting one, in that was clearly and not even attempting to deny that it was latching on to the back of the original story. Scala, in character was attempting to cash in on the story, and would upload to social media a video of him approaching Will Ospreay outside York Hall on the day of Summer Sizzler. Sid tried to convince Will to merchandise some rather naff looking Vader masks, and he would continue this in more videos and on Twitter, which would eventually enrage Vader enough to want a match with him. Sid would continue to push the story in the name of profit, and Vader would reply in kind, threatening to get his hands on Scala, which he eventually would. This is as far as I can tell the only other Wrestling booking Vader had in the UK at this time.
Andy notes that after Vader missed some of the Comic Con dates, and trashed the hotel room he’d been staying in throughout, it was time for him to go back to Colorado a bit earlier than planned. Andy’s 2019 account of what happened as well as his brief retelling in 2025 are very entertaining listens, so I recommend you check them out yourselves with the link in the description. I’ve only played you the bits necessary to tell the story, but Andy goes into a lot more detail.
The story doesn’t quite end there for Vader and Rev Pro though, as the big man begins making claims that Andy, the company and Will Ospreay ripped him off. On October 22nd, Vader would take to Twitter to rant about Ospreay and Quildan, claiming that part of the deal they arranged was that he would receive the master taps to be able to sell in the US. In the podcast Andy is very dismissive of this claim. *CLIP Footage* He seems to be implying that he sent the match to Vader on WeTransfer or a similar site, which shows when the recipient has downloaded the file. Judging by many of the tweets I’ve shown in this video, Vader doesn’t seem the most computer literate, and so this may be a case of Andy fulfilling his end, but not in a way that Vader understood the deal to be.
EDITED
Ending
At the very start of the podcast, Andy explains that he has no regrets about the whole situation, but notes later on that he was ready for it to be done by the end. The phone conversations he and Vader had in the weeks leading up to the match really show a different side of the Mastadon than otherwise presented, until a Dark Side of the Ring episode in 2025 at least. In that documentary much was said of Vader’s crippling self confidence issues. He also says that Vader outright told him that he was lonely. It's hard to believe that a man known for being so imposing and monstrous would have such struggles, but Leon White evidently did, and there are stories to back this idea up. In his review of the episode, John Pollock of Post Wrestling shared his one interaction with Vader, around a telephone interview that was being set up. It seemed according to Pollock that Vader wanted absolute certainty that the interview would air, asking several times and demanding to know when it was set to come out.
Looking back many years later, Andy made a very interesting point that got me thinking. The match between Vader and Will Ospreay got people incredibly invested in who was going to win, and who would lose. There are a few more modern examples of this, like Cody trying to finish his story. Times like this where fans passionately care who wins and who loses feel really rare and special, but Ospreay and Vader created one.
Sources:
Ricochet on Ospreay matches, Highspots December 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM3IXwQq5Pw
Ospreay on Vader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X3sqAGWdfk
https://www.highspots.tv/videos/hh-ospreay-download
Vader comments on Konnan’s podcast September 29th 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7D0zcJjmuY
Heyman event July 12th 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FspL2Gc3eHw
The Chronicles of Podcast, Revolution Pro Wrestling, April 4th 2025 (1:20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmGtTtjnlk
Vader XWA appearance https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2176792379274113&id=1426424384310920&set=a.1515687378717953
XWA Summer Supershow results https://wrestleropesuk.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/xwa-wrestling-the-summer-supershow-full-results/
Sid Scala Vader Hype https://www.facebook.com/SidScala/videos/savvy-sid-addresses-the-vader-controversy/547652105424050/
Scala feud https://wrestleropesuk.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/vader-furious-after-will-ospreay-is-offered-business-opportunity/
Ospreay 2024 comments https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/will-ospreay-vader-wanted-three-match-clause Audio Talk is Jericho 13th March 2024
Vader TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3Aitsvadertime)%20until%3A2016-07-01%20since%3A2016-04-01&src=typed_query&f=live
Vader post match TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3Aitsvadertime)%20until%3A2016-11-01%20since%3A2016-10-01&src=typed_query&f=live Andy TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3AAQuildan)%20until%3A2016-08-20%20since%3A2016-06-20&src=typed_query&f=live
No comments:
Post a Comment