Will Ospreay is thankful for his time in Japan.
Before he officially comes aboard to All Elite Wrestling, Will Ospreay looks back on his lengthy experience in Japan, particularly with its fans. During a recent interview with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard, Ospreay opened up about his relationship with NJPW fans.
While he may now be moving forward with AEW, Ospreay remains forever grateful for the opportunity to perform in front of Japan’s uplifting people, one of whom gifted him a special flag.
“For me, I can’t tell you what that flag [I received from a fan] meant,” Ospreay said. “I don’t want to talk about it because I will burst into flipping tears. I’ve gone through so much as a human being, and experienced things that I didn’t really want to experience. But I guess you just experience it because it’s all part of growing up. Every time that I was sad, scared, or anything about my demeanor was off, Japan was always there to pick me up. No matter what, that was not only my work environment, that was like my adult life before everybody’s eyes.
My entire adult life was in front of members of Japanese audience members or on the internet. To grow up beside them all and to have the experiences that I’ve had. I have won championships that I would never think I would ever win. I’ve had emotional moments. I’ve lived in Japan. I lived there for two years, and to go through the war of the pandemic for the fans that did stick around for New Japan when it was literally impossible to watch that crowd Japanese wrestling, to go through that all together and to come out on the other side and for New Japan to be ready for this new generation to come through, it was a pleasure, man.”
“It was an actual honor to be in that locker room, to be in front of that audience, and to become a man in front of all these people, I cannot express that enough. My gratitude towards everybody is — ah, man, I don’t know where my gratitude is. You can’t put a number on it.”
Watch our full interview with Will Ospreay below:
More must-reads: