Will Ospreay Comments On Vacating The IWGP World Heavyweight Title

When Will Ospreay defeated Kota Ibushi to become the second ever IWGP World Heavyweight Champion it was meant to firmly establish Ospreay as one of the biggest stars in Japan.

However, Ospreay would only reign as champion for 46 days before vacating it due to injury, and during an appearance on the All Real Wrestling Podcast, Ospreay has spoken about dropping the belt:

“So, here’s what happened; I wrestled Shingo and to be honest with you I’ve been carrying around so many nagging injuries it was just to the point where I wasn’t healthy, I really wasn’t. I was like I’m very good at masking a lot of my injuries. I’m very good at just going out there, I’ll even say ‘I’ve got a torn shoulder but I’m still going’ but people are like, 'oh he’s fine just keeps going he over-exaggerates’ and I got hurt with Shingo. It wasn’t just my neck; it was my back as well. If you look at when I do my match with Shingo, I do a shooting star press and it’s a little bit too far out and my back just pops. Honestly, I can remember the pain because it felt like somebody was burning me. I feel like somebody was lighting me on fire and I still had to do another 25 minutes after that. I didn’t realise how bad it was. Then obviously COVID happened really bad in Japan, which postponed the Tokyo Dome show which was meant to be me and (Kazuchika) Okada.

"Then, obviously, they had to move that back but I honestly was in agony. At points, I was getting out of bed and I couldn’t stand up properly and when I could stand up… I can’t explain it at all but it was just, I felt like I was in a car crash. Then I wanted to go get checked out properly and I wanted to do it for my own back and New Japan saw how bad I was so they said all right we’re going to send you home. So, I got sent home, had done all the tests and it was a very bad injury and I will not discuss how bad it was but they said it is fixable and we can get you back in four months.”

Ospreay was out of action until August 2020, before wrestling his return match in New Japan a month later.

H/T: Wrestling Republic