NNew Japan Pro Wrestling

10 years ago today Will Ospreay & Ricochet had their 2016 BOSJ bout with this opening sequence

  • May 27, 2026


10 years ago today Will Ospreay & Ricochet had their 2016 BOSJ bout with this opening sequence



by ElliotElectricity

30 comments

  1. the shit this match caused bro lol

    shit brought vader out of retirement

    that said tho, this match was fire

  2. Back when you could share NJPW clips without them getting insta-deleted.

    I’d love to tell the haters from 10 years ago how universally beloved Ospreay has become.

  5. And it’s, surprise surprise, an absolutely brilliant match.

    I’ll never forget the frustration I felt listening to people who very clearly never watched the match (and some of them admitting as such), have such strong opinions on it, god almighty the wrestling pundit world can be so fucking idiotic.

  6. Awww memories. And then we had like a decade of oldster/grifter rage about it

  7. I will never be a fan of sequences like this. I know thats seen as sacrilege in these parts, but it will never be a style of wrestling that resonates with me.

  8. Also being quite obvious (if not watching this in bad faith / watching it as part of the whole match) that this part in particular was (in keyfabe) simply the feeling out process at the start of the match, albeit a very acrobatic one as it involved two very acrobatic wrestlers who wanted to see what the other was capable of / show off their stuff.

  9. This was the match that got me back into wrestling after over 10 years of not watching. Still fantastic

  10. This, Okada vs Ishii at G1, the PWG 6-man tag match and mid-late 2016 Smackdown got me back into watching wrestling

  11. one of those matches where you remember exactly where you were when you first watched it

  13. one of the most influential matches in recent history. whether that’s been for better or worse is your own opinion

  14. I don’t mind the flipping counters to the head scissors or leapfrog stuff, but the time they ran past each other to do the super hero landing was stupid.

  15. The clip that broke every wrestling fan’s brain. Truly, we have yet to recover

  16. Still not a fan of this match. The no sell on the apron DVD was brutal. That said it’s impressive to see how much they’ve evolved throughout the years especially Ospreay. Man went from a typical flippy shit guy to one of the best wrestlers in the world.

  17. I showed this clip to literally anyone that would listen when I was in high school

  18. goddamn feels way more than 10 years ago, feels like a lifetime ago with how much has happened since

  19. Good match. Not great (I really hate the superhero pose bit) but it told it’s story well. Both are high-flying showoffs who don’t just want to win, they want to prove they’re the premier high-flying showoff.

  24. Love this shit and the crowd loves it to. Its so weird looking back and seeing the hate discourse around this shit when now every company has wrestlers doing stuff like this and matches trying to replicate it. From WWE to AEW to TNA to MLW to GCW they all have been inspired by this.

  26. Seeing this clip made me check out NJPW World, and got me back into wrestling. Fuck knows how much extra business NJPW missed out on by copyright striking clips on social media.

  27. The insufferable people who hate this can’t enjoy anything. “Flippy sh-t” rules. 😎👍

  29. The opening part is used a lot, but the pacing is often much better. It seems like they’re rushing through everything. The rest just seems like a flip contest or a mockery of lucha.

  30. People who said this match had no psychology were very clearly introduced to these two by 10 second clips of this match and nothing else

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