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AEW has signed a lot of big name wrestlers in recent years to compliment some of the stars they’ve built on their own. With sheer volume of talent on the roster, a lot of them get lost in the shuffle quite easily or don’t get pushed in a way where you get the chance to see the full potential of what they’re able to do as a performer in the ring and character.
AEW is The Expendables movie franchise of the pro wrestling universe. You’ve got all of these big action stars under the same banner at the same time, but not all of them get a chance to shine.
Will Ospreay has been the exception to that rule since AEW signed him away from NJPW earlier this year and he made his official debut as a full-time member of the roster in February. When you look at his body of work in 2024 and with most of the big matches he’s had coming primarily in AEW, he’s the runway candidate for wrestling of the year.
Kazuchika Okada, Jay White, Ricky Starks, and others might not be used to their full potential or used at all in AEW, but WIll Ospreay has been used extremely well since signing with the company. I would give his booking a solid A in AEW, as booker Tony Khan has put him in the position to be in big feuds and have big matches since he’s entered the company.
He’s delivered incredible matches for AEW on PPV against names like Konosuke Takeshita, Bryan Danielson, Swerve Strickland, and MJF. That list doesn’t count the incredible TV match where he dropped the AEW International Championship to MJF on the July 17 edition of Dynamite that went nearly an hour in length.
Any time Ospreay is in the ring he’s performing at a high level and he’s doing it better than anyone i can recall since Chris Hero put on a nearly untouchable resume of matches on the indies in 2016 wrestling across a number of promotions in the U.S. and internationally.
Ospreay has matured in the ring and as a performer in front of our eyes in 2024. He’s gotten good on the mic and he carries himself like a star in the ring. He’s taken to performing on TV in the U.S. better than I could have ever imagined.
Ospreay’s ascent to the top as a performer has been like watching a great musical artist mature. They put out some really good albums and all the pieces are there for something truly great and then finally they just explode to a whole new level like Taylor Swift did starting in 2023 touring stadiums all over the world and putting out two huge albums in back-to-back years.
I don’t think Ospreay will be able to beat Hero’s 2016 resume for Wrestler of the Year just because of the sheer volume of incredible matches Hero put on in places like AAW, Evolve, and PWG alone in 2016. Ospreay just doesn’t get the opportunity to wrestle as much as Hero did to gain a clear advantage, but in terms of a wrestler in a major promotion having the type of year and level of consistency in the ring and many of his best matches being on PPV, Ospreay has had one of the best years I’ve ever seen anywhere in any major promotion.
I’m going to push aside the problems I had with the two big shock and awe spots AEW presented in back-to-back matches to end All Out to focus on just how right the company got the booking of Ospreay vs. Pac.
The Ospreay vs. Pac match for the AEW International Championship stole the show and it showcased many of the things that I enjoy about AEW. I’m a hardcore wrestling fan. There’s no shame in admitting that. Not everyone watching All Out last weekend knew that Pac was one of the first really big names to come out of the U.K. in the mid-2000s as a high flyer that captured attention from indie fans in the U.S. and international fans that saw his body of work in Dragon Gate in Japan.
Pac, much like Ospreay did when he became the face of the second wave of talent to break out in the U.K. starting in 2012 with his run in Progress Wrestling based out of the U.K. getting a lot of attention internationally, so it was a treat to see them facing off in an AEW ring on PPV to those of us that have followed their entire careers.
Ospreay and Pac delivered an incredible match at All Out and the announcers did a good job of highlighting their history. It was a treat for hardcore fans, but it was also an incredible match that all AEW fans could get into with great pacing and Pac working the Brutalizer submission throughout the match. Ospreay came out on top in the end, but the match felt like a war that had been settled in the ring. The match was just another reminder of how good Ospreay is and how deep the AEW roster is when the little-used Pac can be used in such an effective manner.
WIll Ospreay is the runaway Wrestler of the Year in 2024 and it is going to be fun to compare how his run stacks up with other all-time great in-ring years. Hero still stands on top of the mountain in terms of the best overall year in the ring I’ve seen in the modern era, but Ospreay performing to this level on mainstream TV and PPV has been truly special to watch. Looking at the modern landscape of wrestling, it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously challenging Ospreay for Wrestler of the Year in the near future given that he’s only 31 years old and is just entering the prime years of his career.
Contact Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. Follow him on X @SR_Torch
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