5-Star Match Reviews: Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita – AEW Revolution 2024

Many wrestling fans consider Will Ospreay the best wrestler active today. There are plenty reasons behind this opinion: he has superhuman conditioning, he’s a jack-of-all-trades type who can’t be put into one box or another, and he executes some of the most visually-incredible moves ever seen. But these strengths are also weaknesses, depending on one’s point of view. The very things that make him a standout performer are also the same reasons why some people can’t stand him, no matter who he’s in the ring with. But are there genuine criticisms behind this purported GOAT-level wrestler, or is it merely a case of sour grapes?

The Story

This was Ospreay’s first match as a full-time AEW wrestler. To live up to the hype of him being this spectacular and bedazzling performer, AEW booked Ospreay to face someone with a similar style and wrestling philosophy in Takeshita. At the time Takeshita was aligned with Don Callis and his Family, which also included Ospreay as Callis had been helping Ospreay as early as the prior summer when Ospreay faced Kenny Omega at Forbidden Door 2023. So this was two stablemates with nothing better to do facing off in a clean, purely competitive encounter, with the only thing drawing people in being the shared reputation between both men. Both Ospreay and Takeshita were known for being great in-ring performers and to AEW’s audience that was enough to get people to watch. But would it be enough to garner MOTY recognition?

The Match

This took place on March 3, 2024. It was rated *****3/4 by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

They start with some chain grappling which ends when Ospreay gets Takeshita on the ropes and slaps him. They do the double shoulderblock spot and then Ospreay lands another slap. Ospreay ducks another clothesline and lands a headscissor which leads to a standing ovation. He hands a stiff chop but Takeshita walks it off. A standing strike exchange ensues and then Takeshita bounces off the ropes with a flying clothesline. Takeshita lands a corner clothesline and charges back for another but Ospreay chases him. Ospreay lands on the apron and goes for a springboard. Takeshita cuts him off, places him on the top turnbuckle, hits an elbow, and lands a superplex, all for a one-count.

Ospreay fights out of a facelock so Takeshita slams him and lands a second-rope senton for another one-count. Takeshita traps him in a sleeper and follows with a Burning elbow smash which leads to boos. He lands a second Burning elbow smash but Ospreay hits back with chops. Takeshita sends him into the ropes and tries a hiptoss but Ospreay counters with a cobra twist. Takeshita throws him off and charges but runs into a boot. Ospreay follows with a springboard elbow and a counter handspring enzuigiri. Takeshita bails to ringside but Ospreay follows with a pescado to the floor.

Back in the ring Ospreay lands a back suplex for a two-count. Takeshita resists a powerbomb so Ospreay lands Kawada kicks and a stiff chop. Ospreay goes to the ropes but Takeshita counters with what looks like a pop-up sitout F-5 followed by a single-knee dropkick. Then Takeshita channels Kenny Omega and hits a suicide dive onto Ospreay on the floor.

Takeshita dumps Ospreay back into the ring and hits a top-rope senton that connects with Ospreay’s knees. Ospreay goes for a sky twister press, Takeshita dodges, and Ospreay lands on his feet. Takeshita hits first with a picture-perfect bridging German suplex for two. Takeshita goes to the ropes but Ospreay hits his step-up enzuigiri combo. Takeshita no-sells and lands a release German. He goes for the running kick again but this time Ospreay lands a standing Spanish Fly. Both men collapse.

They get to their knees and trade forearms. They fight to their feet and Ospreay lands a gut kick followed by some stiff elbows followed by an extra hard Misawa rolling elbow. The referee briefly makes Ospreay back off as Takeshita sells like he has been knocked so silly his hands contort into odd configurations. Takeshita insists on continuing so Ospreay pats his head mockingly with his boot…that is, until Takeshita catches his foot and drops him with an elbow smash of his own. But then Ospreay starts hulking up, despite doing something heelish seconds later. Takeshita lands a second elbow. Ospreay hulks up even harder. Takeshita tries another one. Ospreay blocks and lands Kawada kicks. Ospreay no-sells and drills him with another elbow. Takeshita goes down but is too exhausted to cover.

Takeshita charges for a lariat. Ospreay flips over and attempts a Ligerbomb. Takeshita escapes and tries a powerbomb of his own. Ospreay lands on his feet and hits a hook kick. Takeshita resists a Stormbreaker so Ospreay enzuigiris him. Tiger Driver by Ospreay. Two-count. An Os-Cutter is countered into a Blue Thunder Bomb for another two-count. Ospreay escapes a Chaos Theory so Takeshita lands another elbow smash. Ospreay blocks a corner charge with a kick combo and tries a top-rope Os-Cutter. Takeshita blocks that one but can’t block the next one. One, two, Takeshita survives. Ospreay charges for the Hidden Blade. Takeshita hits first with a lariat and collapses onto Ospreay for two.

A corner struggle ends with Ospreay hitting his Cheeky Nandos through-the legs thrust kick. Ospreay tries a top-rope Frankensteiner but Ospreay holds on. Then Takeshita, while still sitting on the top turnbuckle, lifts Ospreay up and lands a vertical suplex into the corner. At first it looks like a Brainbuster but then on replay it becomes clear that Takeshita drives Ospreay back-first instead. Somehow Ospreay kicks out at two and the camera zooms in on a nasty purple contusion on Ospreay’s back. Undeterred, Takeshita lands a running bicycle knee for two. Takeshita pulls down his kneepad and tries another kneelift. But Ospreay catches his foot. Takeshita lands some forearms. Ospreay turns around with a hook kick and tries a suplex. Takeshita counters that with – no, Ospreay turns this into a midair stunner followed by a poisoned Frankensteiner. Osprey goes for the Stormbreaker. Takeshita counters with a wheelbarrow piledriver/wheelbarrow release suplex combo. Ospreay lands on his feet and charges with a lariat. Takeshita kicks out at one!

Ospreay tries Stormbreaker again. Takeshita escapes and both men hit simultaneous discus strikes. Another strike exchange ends with Takeshita hitting a big running lariat. Takeshita charges for a bone-on-bone knee strike. Ospreay counters into a powerbomb followed by a Styles Clash, all for two once more. Then Ospreay folds Takeshita in half with a Tiger Driver ’91 and follows with a Hidden Blade. One, two, and three! Ospreay wins!

Winner after 21:57: Will Ospreay

Post-match, after recovering Ospreay and Takeshita shake hands and bow to each other.

You can watch the full match here or here.

Review

I used to think Will Ospreay was genuinely fantastic as a wrestler, that he was some kind of next generation avant-garde performer who could do anything and everything possible. But the more I watch his matches the more it becomes clear that he’s nowhere anywhere near GOAT level, at least not yet. Sure, he executes techniques flawlessly. Sure he flies around at breakneck speed. And sure, he has some of the best timing when it comes to countering and reversing whatever’s happening in front of him. These are all good traits in a wrestler. But Ospreay as a wrestler tends to have a fatal flaw, one that makes it hard to invest emotionally into his matches: his overwhelming sense of sterility. Make no mistake, Ospreay is excellent at executing impressive maneuvers but quite bad at making anything feel important. He is a video game wrestler come to life, for better or for worse. His actions elicit strong reactions from the live crowd, but there’s so little emotion in whatever’s happening that his matches tend to be forgotten soon afterwards, especially since he has such a rigid copy-and-paste match layout.

Meanwhile, Takeshita might as well have been a warm body or a nameless stand-in here. After all, this was Ospreay’s big debut singles match as a fulltime guy and there’s no way anyone in AEW would book him to lose this match. This left Takeshita doomed from the start. Though he executed a lot of cool moves as well and stayed in lockstep with Ospreay until the very end, he, too, didn’t show all that much emotion or progress behind whatever he did. The closest the match came to having something resembling an inner story was Takeshita’s targeting of Ospreay’s back, but that too was forgotten when the time called for it. In fact, very little was actually sold at all; for two guys who were supposedly beating the shit out of each other and hitting some of the most violent and jarring techniques imaginable, they both moved from one technique to another with little in the way of selling. I know some people can ignore that factor which appears to be inherent in not just Ospreay’s style but in many AEW wrestlers’, but I can’t. If the wrestlers don’t let anything register or brush each and every big move off without so much as flinching then why should anyone in the audience care about it?

Though the live crowd was definitely loud and appreciative for Ospreay’s first singles match as a fulltime AEW wrestler, it didn’t feel like there was any real heat or tension for anything going on. Both guys teased referee stoppage from particularly impactful moves but they were ignored later on. Both guys did moves we’ve all seen before, so it’s not like the match had anything unique about it. No special bumps, no exceptional stories, no special endings, and no deviation from a clearly curated formula. At the end of the day this was meant to be a hot debut for Ospreay, and while he and Takeshita put on an impressive athletic performance, the match didn’t give me any reason to want to see more of either man. There was such a totality and finality to the match that it left nothing to the imagination or any reason to see these guys in the future. It was as if both guys were wrestling here as though this was going to be their last match ever, which is a backwards mindset to have.

Final Rating: ***1/4

This is the pro-wrestling equivalent of cotton candy: eye-catching and tasty in the moment but ultimately lacking in substance and forgotten soon after consuming. It was high on action but low on story or meaning. While AEW has proven that an audience exists for such inconsequential high-octane action, the match doesn’t have anything special about it, especially since Ospreay – the star of the match from start to finish – had much better matches before this one. Just because this kept going and had a conveyor belt of ludicrous near-falls doesn’t automatically mean that it’s some kind of incredible classic.

If you haven’t seen this match yet then if I were you I wouldn’t waste your time with it since it wasn’t anything special. Ospreay had much better matches years earlier against the likes of WALTER in OTT and Hiromu Takahashi in NJPW, and in AEW he had a much better match than this against Kenny Omega in Toronto. Those matches play to his strengths so much more; one because he plays David against a genuine goliath, the other has someone whose style complements his and has a real story behind it, and the last because Ospreay actually shows some spontaneity and plays to the crowd rather than spending the entirety of his in-ring time moving mechanically from one maneuver to the next.

Both men have had better matches so you’re better off looking for those instead of revisiting this one.

Thanks for reading.