Not only is Jim Ross one of the greatest announcers in wrestling history, he’s also been praised across the industry as one of the brightest minds in the business.
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Serving as a top decision maker in the WWE for many years in the past, as well as one of the top talent scouts in identifying talent, there’s few people on the planet that can rival his credentials when it comes to identifying potentials stars.
Ross recently told Sports Illustrated the name he thinks has the potential to be the next big breakout star in the industry: Will Ospreay.
“Ospreay is the next breakout star, but only if he can stay healthy. He has a great upside, without any question, but the questions concern the style and how he works. Calling his matches, I’ve seen him get up after I thought he hurt himself or broke something in his body. At some point, you don’t need a medical degree to figure out the fact that when you take bumps on surfaces that were never intended to be bumping surfaces, and you do it for too long, the cumulative effect is going to be negative.
“He has a great imagination and he’s a great improvisationalist, and he’s really good with strikes and submissions. So if he leaned a little more on the other aspects of ‘The Aerial Assassin’–he doesn’t have to do a moonsault to the outside to be an aerial assassin, he just needs to land on a surface that will half-ass welcome your body to it.
“He’s got some size, he’s a real keeper, but I do worry about the number of risks he takes on any given tour. I hope I’m wrong, because he is so entertaining and wonderfully creative, and he’ll be a big, big star if he stays healthy. It’s up to guys like myself and Josh Barnett, or Don Callis and Kevin Kelly, to make sure we don’t make him known for only one thing in taking risks. Sometimes the talent believe what you say about them, and they continue down that road, which has a very unfortunate but inevitable destination.”
Ospreay is hardly a new name to hardcore fans of professional wrestling. He’s been one of the top names on the independent circuit now for a few years, notably breaking out in a big way in a match against Ricochet during New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament two years ago.
Fans looking to familiarize themselves with Ospreay’s work can find him all over the globe. He’s currently an active competitor with New Japan Pro Wrestling, PROGRESS Wrestling (U.K.), RevPro (U.K.), and Ring of Honor Wrestling (U.S.), among others.
