Most 14 year old wrestling fans simply dream of running their own promotions, but instead take to wrestling video games to play out their fantasies, but for current NJPW star Will Ospreay, that dream quickly became a reality.
At only 14 years old Ospreay had a wrestling ring built in his backyard after his mother worked out that her son was getting into trouble outside of school.
Ospreay then went on to launch the Rainham Championship Wrestling Alliance out of his backyard, which still runs to this day.
In an interview with Wrestling Republic’s very own Eric Novak on the All Real Wrestling Podcast, Ospreay was asked what it was like owning a ring at only 14 years old:
I guess my mom saw that I was also getting into trouble in school, uh not in school but, like kinda out of school. I think she knew I was getting into trouble but, I never really told her about it so when she put the wrestling ring in my back garden she knew like fabricators from her stagen background so then I had a ring fabricated in my garden and uh, it was just the case, just going like alright it’s fun we film it we put it on youtube we do like cool little music videos but, then it just became an idea of what if we did this in front of an audience like all of our friends watch us just on youtube anyways so what if we we were just like “hey were just gonna put a push bring up in a hole and uh we’re gonna sell tickets and anyone who wants to come”.
Back then to me a big number like 80 people showing up to watch 15 year old kids like in spandex grapple one another which I mean could be questionable, but at the same sense it was just like we had no idea what we were doing but we were just having the most fun.
I don’t think we were thinking of it as like “let’s make money from this” I think we genuinely just enjoyed professional wrestling and we just went with it, and to this day what makes me laugh is that we called it RCWA which is Rainham championship wrestling alliance and to this day that company now still is going in full circle.
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