Leon Slater delivered one of the most jaw-dropping moments at TNA Rebellion, soaring from the top of the Ultimate X structure with a Swanton 450 onto a crowd below that included Moose, Matt Cardona, Sidney Akeem, KC Navarro, AJ Francis, and Vikingo.
However, the landing went awry. Slater wasn’t caught on the dive and crashed chest-and-face first onto the floor.
Will Ospreay initially tweeted—then deleted—a comment criticizing those involved in the spot, saying they should give half their pay to Slater for failing to protect him.
In an interview with Daily Mail, Ospreay elaborated on his frustration when asked what currently bothers him about the wrestling business.
“When young men jump off of high-high sculptures, there are five or six very well-respected professional wrestlers, and they jump, and they just crash and burn to the floor. One of them is the only one that has attempted to catch him. That annoys me the most in wrestling. Obviously, I’m referring to the thing that happened to Leon Slater. I made a tweet about it and I deleted it because I didn’t want to invite that discourse, but I think about it. I wasn’t backstage; I don’t know what the accountability was for that moment, but here are the things that went through my mind.”
Ospreay reflected on a past incident where he believed he had seriously injured Slater during a match, which shaped his perspective on the situation.
“I come from a place because I’ve actually hurt Leon before. I wrestled Leon at RevPro and I gave him a powerbomb. I lifted him up and I pulled him down and he went to attack the mat, but I pulled him too hard and I dropped him on his head. If the camera was ringside, you hear me scream. I honestly thought I killed this kid. I have never felt worse in my life. After that moment, I sent him money because I really could’ve done a lot of damage there. ‘Please go get, even if it’s an MRI or a sports massage,’ because I felt a level of guilt that I didn’t take care of my opponent in that moment. There are instances where you can take care of your opponent and instances when you can’t.”
Ospreay acknowledged the difficulty of catching such a high-risk move but still took issue with how things played out.
“In that moment, it’s such a difficult thing to catch, it really is, especially a 450 about 15 feet in the air. I don’t know the accountability, and I know all of them are great professional wrestlers and wonderful human beings, which is the main thing, but that is atrocious in my mind. That is something that I feel is so bad for Leon because in my mind, I know deep down, Leon is young and is going to bounce back from that, and I’ve been in that position where I’ve jumped and no one has caught me. His money isn’t getting any bigger. He isn’t getting more money for those type of things. All of those wrestlers are stars. Maybe one or two are not, but a lot of them are making a good chunk of change. If that would’ve been the end of him and he broke his ribs and he’s done, he ain’t getting any more money for that.”
“Stuff like that annoys me in wrestling. If you know someone is up there and it’s a scary height, you don’t need to have your arms wide open to catch him. You just need to stop their momentum, and I know it’s going to piss a lot of people off, I’m not doing it to shame those wrestlers, but it should be a lesson and taught in classes. There should’ve been more care taken of that wrestler. He’s young and he’ll bounce back, but what if that would’ve gone terribly wrong? Again, I don’t know the accountability of what happened backstage. What Moose said in his tweet, that’s what made me go, ‘I don’t want to invite this discourse to Twitter today.’ I know Leon is fine and he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of this, but in those moments, I’ve been that guy where people dropped me. I didn’t get any extra money. I did for the love of the game. Love of the game and trust for the boys.”
When asked if he’d consider advising Slater to avoid similar high-risk spots in the future, Ospreay explained why those moments can be important, even if they’re dangerous.
“I think they help make people. Those moments in time when you’re standing on the edge of your seat. When they do, they become legendary and are looked upon as indestructible, and the kid is. I think Leon, at that age, he’s leagues above me when I was 21. Moments like that, it makes me fearful that if they didn’t catch him. When I did the moonsault and I had Kyle [Fletcher] and those guys looking after me. I trust Kyle. In that moment, I would say, ‘Pick something where you are safe.’ Matt Cardona, Moose, AJ, strangely enough, AJ gets a lot of shit online and he was the only one that actually attempted to grab him. It’s a real pet peeve of mine and to see it play out on such a big stage like Rebellion, it’s one of those ones where, alright, you guys should know better,” said Ospreay.
Thankfully, Slater walked away from the frightening spot without serious injury.
(H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.)
