Remember that feud between Vader and Will Ospreay that started because the former was a vocal critic of the latter's match against Ricochet at New Japan's Best of the Super Juniors tournament? The two went back-and-forth and it wasn't long before a match was booked for Revolution Pro Wrestling's Uprising event on Aug. 12 at York Hall in London, England.
By all accounts, it was a hell of an evening.
Vader's criticism of Ospreay vs. Ricochet was that it was athletic, sure, but they told no story. Well, they sure told one hell of a story here and, surprisingly enough, that story ended with the grizzled veteran scoring a victory over the young lion.
It started like this:
Listen to that crowd. Maybe it didn't start as a work, but they pulled off one hell of a piece of business here.
The story of the match itself is even better, as told by Joe Lemon at F4Wonline.com:
Both guys fought up the ramp, leading to security getting involved. It was being booked as if Vader was shooting on the officials and the crowd really bought into it. Vader chokeslammed Ospreay through the announce table. Ospreay sold this for a long time, but as security restrained Vader, Ospreay did a dive from the ramp on top of Vader and the security team.
Crowd was molten by this point, and as it looked like Ospreay was about to pick up the win, Pete Dunne interfered. He took out Ospreay and shook hands with Vader. This led to Ricochet interfering, first taking out Dunne, and then double-teaming Vader with Ospreay. This played into how the Vader/Ospreay feud originally began after Vader's Twitter comments criticizing Ospreay vs. Ricochet at NJPW's Best of the Super Juniors.
Vader kicked out of both guys maneuvers to the surprise of the crowd. Dunne then got involved again. Vader followed by chokeslamming Ospreay twice and scoring the win.
But because this entire feud was based in reality, it didn't end there:
The crowd was shocked at the ending. Ospreay cut a promo, referring to it as a "pipe bomb" as he sat in the middle of the ring. Ospreay cut a great promo, seeming genuinely pissed off about doing the job. He cryptically implied that Vader refused to lose the match as he spoke about egos in wrestling.
A work? Almost certainly, but you can't argue with what they managed to pull off here, finding a way to make money on Vader in 2016. Whether or not they did right by Ospreay is up for debate, however.
I'll let you decide on that.