Will Ospreay Opens Up About AEW Return After Neck Surgery

Wolkenbrod: Given what we’ve seen from wrestlers suffering serious neck injuries — some not returning for years or at all — did you ever have moments during recovery where you didn’t know if you’d step back in the ring again?

Ospreay: I mean, that always kind of creeped in, but I knew I was going to do everything physically possible to make this go as quickly as possible and get back in the ring. It was always a conversation, and I had great phone calls with my surgeon, Dr. Wallace, who deserves the biggest shoutout because he’s given me a second chance at having a career doing this.

I mean, 10 years ago, this was the type of thing that medically disqualified you from wrestling. So the fact that medical science has come so far, man, I’m just grateful and so blessed. And I must give the biggest shoutout to Tony [Khan] for paying for that surgery because the moment I saw that f****** bill — bro, it was more expensive than my f****** house. It was crazy.

Wolkenbrod: Before the surgery, did you consult with any other wrestlers who underwent a similar operation to you?

Ospreay: Yeah, I spoke with Adam Copeland quite a lot about it, just because I guess he’s kind of the godfather of this surgery. He’s had three of them. I think he’s had a [triple fusion neck surgery]. I remember when I got told how severe it was because I didn’t realize how bad it actually was. I’d been wrestling on it for like 10 months. It only really started getting bad around May, and then it started f****** destroying me.

But I spoke to him, and he gave me the whole backstory of when he found out about his surgery and what was going to happen. He gave me his number to keep in contact because he knows it can get really depressing at times. So if I ever needed to vent or bullshit, he was always a great person to call or text about stuff.

There were a lot of times he was in London too, so I got to chat with him during good hours. I never felt like I’d text him and have to wait until the next morning because of the time zones. So he was really good.

I spoke with Kyle O’Reilly as well. He was great. I spoke with Roddy and Bryan Danielson a little bit, but not much. Everybody’s just been super cool because it really is such a good group of people backstage. I feel like news got around very quickly, and it was one of those things where it was really lovely having the support of my peers and everybody wishing for me to come back.

Wolkenbrod: Physically getting cleared is one thing, but mentally, what was the hardest hurdle to get over before stepping back into the ring?

Ospreay: Oh my, it just didn’t feel like my head. When I was allowed to get back in the ring, they said the first thing I was allowed to do was hit the ropes. I remember the first time I hit the ropes and my head just whipped back. There was a part of me that was like, “Have I been running the ropes wrong my entire career, or is this just because my neck muscles haven’t built up enough strength yet?”

Because, once again, you’ve got to keep that in mind. When you hit the ropes, you’re grabbing hold of the top rope, and you’re throwing your entire body weight into it. So, if you don’t have the neck muscle strength, then your head’s going to jack back with it. Then I turned to really focusing on my neck training.

But it was weird things too, like doing forward rolls or back rolls, where I had such great flexibility and range of movement before the surgery. Afterwards, it’s really good, but it’s not what it used to be.

Wolkenbrod: Do you remember if there was a certain move that initially triggered your neck pain?

Ospreay: I don’t want to put it out there just because I feel like people are going to search for it, and people are going to want to pin it on someone to blame. But I’ll be honest with you, it wasn’t one thing. It was an accumulation of it just going and going and going until finally my body just said, “This is enough now. We can’t take it anymore.”

Wolkenbrod: When you fully committed to AEW, there was an expectation you’d immediately be that guy. Since you’ve been there, have you felt that pressure, or have you been able to tune it out?

Ospreay: There’s a little bit of pressure because, obviously, that first night I came into AEW as a full-time wrestler, I feel like I gave people a taste of what I could do from my time in New Japan and doing the crossover shows. I feel like I made a good impression.

I didn’t think of myself in that top-style bracket, though, because if you looked at the field, I’d see guys like Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Moxley, all these guys who are f****** top-level talents, and I still feel like I’m climbing those rungs and climbing those ladders. I’ll never really have any ego above the men that paved the way before me.

But of course, I want to be in that role, and of course I want to work for it and learn off the people I just mentioned so that one day I can have that role and then give it to somebody who’s coming up through the ranks. I want to be the mountain to climb, and do it in a way where I never bullshitted anyone and never stabbed anybody in the back. I never cut anybody’s legs out from underneath them.

When I came into AEW, there was a lot of negative press surrounding it and the backstage environment. I wanted to be one of the pieces of the puzzle that pulled all of us together. That comes from all the work I did in New Japan.

New Japan was such a team effort. There were things you wouldn’t like about it, but at the end of the day, we all had to pull in the same direction because if we didn’t, we were going to stagnate, slow down, and things were going to happen that would deter people from watching us.

It’s all about being a team, and that was my main thing when I came into AEW — trying to bring the team together.

Wolkenbrod: You’ve talked about wanting more AEW talent to work Japan, so from your experience, what do they gain there that they can’t get working only in the U.S.?

Ospreay: It’s reps. Japan still does house shows. So, for example, there are two types of tours you can do in Japan. There’s a tournament tour, where most of those shows are televised. So there’ll be a G1, for example, where it’s six weeks and 10-person blocks with nine round-robin singles matches. Then if you get enough points, you go to the semis, and after that you go to the final. That’s when you’re on. The red light is on and the world is watching.

But if you do something like the New Beginning tour, which is the one they do right after Wrestle Kingdom, they’ll have three really big shows — one in Tokyo, one in Osaka and one in Sapporo — and everything in between isn’t televised. The only thing you can really do is take photos. That’s when you get to play, learn and experience things because you’re working with the same group of people over and over again. So, you’re learning their rhythm, their timing, how to hit the ropes and how to attack the mat.

It’s one of those things where I always feel bad for certain talent because there are so many super talented people in AEW, and we’re all fighting for four hours a week of television. Although that seems like a lot, it really isn’t.

For me, there are opportunities to send talent over to Japan to learn and assist New Japan’s house shows. I think there’s a lot of talent in AEW, but I also feel like there are a lot of people who could learn a lot more by stepping outside their comfort zone and going somewhere where you have to play as a team.

Wolkenbrod: From just being over there, how do you feel about the state of NJPW? How do you think AEW can help them, and do you feel any sense of obligation to do what you can given how instrumental that company was to your career?

Ospreay: I feel like AEW is doing kind of good by them now. They’re allowing me to go over there, and I was one of their top guys before I left. The last house we drew was a sold-out EDION Arena, and we did great Tokyo Dome numbers. Anytime I was on the Ryogoku cards, the numbers were really healthy. I was a good draw for them and a good merchandise seller for them.

On top of that, they’ve been sending over Andrade and Konosuke Takeshita obviously goes over there. He won their G1. The largest attendance they ever had was for Hiroshi Tanahashi’s retirement, and of course it’s Tanahashi’s retirement, everybody’s going to go. But the fact Tony allowed Okada to go over there and give Tanahashi that wonderful last moment, yeah, I feel like Tony wants to be a good partner and send people over.

Sometimes it is difficult because New Japan predominantly runs weekends and holidays, so a lot of the time people would have to miss Collision. I’m not really a Collision guy. I’m normally more of a Dynamite guy. I’d happily do Collision because I quite enjoy the aesthetic and the vibe of it, but I’m normally on Dynamite, so my weekends are usually available. That lets me go over to Japan and do a lot of their big shows.

Wolkenbrod: When United Empire showed up in AEW earlier this year, what did it mean to you personally to bring something you built in Japan onto that stage?

Ospreay: I felt like we’d done enough in Japan before I left to build a good reputation around knowledgeable wrestling fans because I feel like we started something completely from scratch. We didn’t imitate anyone else. We just tried to find our own groove, and I feel like we successfully did that with our imagery and the content we always put out. I felt like we had a really good thing.

It did dip off a bit after I left, and that sucked because Callum [Newman] and Henare got hurt, so it essentially took out half the group. Jeff [Cobb] was on his way out too, so I feel like they struggled for a fair bit, which obviously upset me.

When I signed my deal with AEW, I told New Japan that I wanted two years just to understand American-style wrestling because I wasn’t used to American TV-style wrestling. And to be fair, I’m a dad now — a stepdad — so balancing family life, AEW and New Japan on top of it would’ve been really stressful for me. I just wanted to commit myself to AEW for at least two years.

But I always had faith in New Japan because they know how to make stars. They know how to take someone who shows potential and fully transform them into household names throughout Japan. So I never really had that worry about them.

Even when I was hurt, though, the only thing I kept thinking about was how gutted I was that I wasn’t going to be able to wrestle on Tanahashi’s retirement show. I felt like I hadn’t done anything to be there. Then we had conversations about me potentially doing five or six dates a year, so it was super important when we had the United Empire boys come over to AEW because it was something really cool.

Callum’s been my boy, and Henare and [Francesco] Akira too. So to have that trust from Tony to bring in three guys that a lot of the TV audience wouldn’t have known was massive. But by the end of it, everybody was intrigued by the speed and precision of Akira, the tenacity of Henare and the way he carried himself, and then seeing Callum as this future star in the making.

By the end of that, you just wanted to know who these people were. It made me super happy knowing Tony was so thrilled with all of us. He was so happy with the United Empire boys.

Wolkenbrod: Do you envision them making more appearances?

Ospreay: I would like to do it a little bit more because, obviously, they’re my teammates. They’re the guys that got me to where I was. In 2019, I felt like at that time I was the best in the world. I felt like I was at my peak in a weird way. But I do believe my peak was probably during the COVID era, which f****** sucks.

In 2020, it was me, O-Khan, Jeff and Henare, and I just remember when I first started getting attraction from the wrestling crowd, it was alongside my boys. Those guys were alongside me as I rode that wave. We were just a great team.

So I hope so, and I hope we can keep doing it.

Wolkenbrod: You’ve had so many high-profile matches, but is there one you feel didn’t get the spotlight it deserved that you’re especially proud of?

Ospreay: I loved my match with [Kazuchika] Okada. It was the one that followed the Kyle Fletcher one where I wrestled twice in one night. Me and Okada, I think we wrestled like 11 times, and that was my favorite one I’ve ever done with him.

Once again, it keeps tying back to New Japan, and I apologize for that, but he was my mentor for years. He looked after me so well, and I’ve got nothing but love for him. I wouldn’t be the man I am without his presence and his big brother aura, you should say.

I loved that match, but I think because it happened at the end of the year and everyone was kind of winding down with wrestling, it didn’t get as much attraction as I wanted it to get. Not many people really talked about it. I listen to podcasts and people doing wrestling reviews and stuff like that, and hardly anyone covered it because it felt like it happened during that end-of-the-year period where everyone’s preparing for New Year’s and getting ready for party season.

I’d just love to hear people’s feedback on those matches because my whole aspect of wrestling is wanting to entertain people who spend their hard-earned money to watch the products I’m wrestling on. I know I can’t please everybody, but I do my best to stay well tuned in and tapped in with the wrestling fan.

Wolkenbrod: The big news lately has been Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston becoming free agents, and it’s sparked a lot of conversation about wrestling for what you’re worth. How would you feel about potentially facing them in AEW?

Ospreay: I mean, I would love it. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about them. I loved watching Kofi Kingston win the WWE Championship and seeing what that meant to so many people. I think that’s powerful stuff.

I’ve only really spoken with Xavier Woods on Twitter, and I think it’s mostly been about costumes more than anything. He’s messaged me quite a lot about how he loves my jackets.

Everybody’s said they’re wonderful human beings, so if the avenues are there, of course I’d love to f****** wrestle them.

Wolkenbrod: Hypothetically, when you picture a moment like winning the AEW World Title at Wembley, is it about the title itself — or what it says about everything it took to get there?

Ospreay: I think there are so many things that go into it because that belt isn’t just a responsibility to the locker room. It’s a responsibility to the network, to the boss, to production and everybody that puts so much work and effort into making AEW work. Only a fine group of people have ever been AEW World Champion, and man, I want nothing more than to have it.

I don’t know if it’ll ever be for me. I don’t know if I’m top level enough to hold people’s attention because it’s such a hard job to do. Sometimes that’s the curse of the main event. There are nine or 10 matches on these shows, and by the time you get to the main event, you have to be the best of the best to keep that crowd engaged.

I think I’ve been in three or four main events, and I feel like I’ve done a really good job of keeping everybody fully invested even when their batteries are drained. I trust myself in those positions, and I want nothing more than for this whole journey — from when I started wrestling at 14 years old in my garden, then going all over Europe, going to the United States, going over to Japan and finally landing as a weekly TV star — to mean something.

I was never made by WWE. I was never touched by them. I would hold such pride and honor in knowing that someone from England who never moved away from his country was able to do that. I really hope that inspires so many of the other UK lads and lasses over there that they don’t need to compromise on their beliefs or what they want.

Anything is achievable, but you do have to make sacrifices and you do have to work for it. I’m proud of the sacrifices I’ve made, and I’m proud that I stuck to my guns. This is the last thing I want. I want the responsibility of being the guy — the world champion, the main event and the guy that can be depended on.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com