He spoke candidly about the match with Ospreay.
Will Ospreay’s first match as a contracted AEW talent took place at the Revolution pay-per-view. He clashed with fellow member of The Don Callis Family, Konosuke Takeshita.
The two talents battled it out for 22 minutes before Ospreay put Takeshita away to secure the win. Speaking to DDT Pro-Wrestling’s official website, Takeshita did a deep dive into the match and said he was surprised by how well-received the match was by his co-workers. He was reached out to by an abundance of people who were present for it.
One wrestler told Takeshita that him and Ospreay may wrestle more times in the future, but how will they get over the hurdle of the first match when it was that great. After 12 years of being in the business, Takeshita feels he has found a rival in Ospreay. He added that Ospreay is the best wrestler in the world but after sharing the ring with him, he realized the number one spot is not out of his grasp.
I don’t think it was so much that I had a great response (to the match with Will Ospreay at AEW Revolution), but the reviews from those around me were so good that I was surprised. The next day, I was approached by every single person at the venue, including the wrestlers, staff, referees, and camera crew… The wrestler said to me, ‘Takeshita and Ospreay may fight many times in the future, but how will they get over the hurdle if they have such a great match at the beginning?’… I feel like I haven’t done that much yet. So I guess I felt like I could do even better if I did it a second or third time.
Up until now, I’ve been thinking, I’ve even gotten to the point where I can compete against such great fighters (in AEW), but with Ospreay, going back to what I said earlier, he is a wrestler of my generation… I had already made a post about this, but I felt that after 12 years of wrestling, I had finally found my rival.
I didn’t have a chance to feel that much athletic strength when I came to the U.S., but with Ospreay, I felt that from the very beginning. Of course, he’s better than me when it comes to high-flying moves, but in terms of power, I was a little better than him… The first time he saw me was in 2019, when it was a DDT match between me and Chris Brookes at Korakuen. Apparently, he came to see DDT for the first time… and at that time, he thought, I would like to have a match with him someday… I wanted to have a match someday. I was wondering if DDT could do it, or if New Japan Pro-Wrestling could do it, but it turned out to be AEW…. I truly believe that the best wrestler in the world is Ospreay… I thought (being number one) was not far away after competing against him.
There was a point in the conversation when Takeshita touched on his standing in AEW in comparison to a Will Ospreay or Kazuchika Okada. He used a team analogy to describe it.
He said he started out on the farm team, produced results and then made it to the second team and eventually the first team, but he’s still not a starter.
I always have that sense of crisis. The difference between Mr. Okada and (Will) Ospreay and myself is whether or not we came in with a guaranteed starting position at the start. I started on the farm. I managed to make good results in the second team, and although I made it to the first team, I am still not a starter. That is more difficult than improving the quality of my matches. I think anyone who has left Japan and experienced overseas can understand that.
Coming out of Revolution, Ospreay went on to have a singles match against Don Callis Family member and ROH World Television Champion, Kyle Fletcher. He scored a win over Fletcher in the main event of Dynamite.
