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AEW's Will Ospreay discusses his career highlights including matches with top performers, his 48 five-star rated matches, painful in-ring moments, potential US relocation, response to Triple H's comments, and his thoughts on adjusting his wrestling style.
Will Ospreay (@WillOspreay) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet to discuss his past year in All Elite Wrestling which included matches against Bryan Danielson, Konosuke Takeshita and Swerve Strickland, having 48 five-star or higher matches from Dave Meltzer, some of his most painful bumps in wrestling, if he has ever thought about permanently moving to the United States, Triple H's comments about being afraid of the grind and his response, if he has thought about slowing down in the ring, his go-to Nando's order and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde
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"Thought about it, because me and the Mrs. went to Disney World with the kid a little while ago, and was really fun. We done two weeks out in Orlando, it was all right. I don't think I would live in Orlando just because, I don't know, it would grate on me a little bit, but it's crossed our minds. But I will be honest with you, I just like living in England. I love my country. I love just sitting there. I mean, it's in shambles right now, be honest with you, but I still love it. I love seeing me Mom, I like seeing me Dad, like seeing my granddad. Now, my nan passed away, unfortunately, but yeah, I just love seeing my family. I love my country. I love Nando's as well. It's too good."
"Oh, mate, it's two butterfly chickens medium, peri chips, creamy mash. If you're not feeling mash corn on the cob, two Perinase dips and a bottomless drink."
"Absolutely yeah. Like, the offers were night and day as well. The whole idea for me was I wanted to make money from this and I wanted to have the most amount of time with my family. Although three days out of the week I would be wrestling, I get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with my kid. Obviously when there's a PPV it doesn't [happen], but I get that time with my kid. [If] he's not at school I get to do whatever I want with him. We play video games, we go out and we'd go on a mad hike. So for me, that's way more important. I just didn't want to do the move. That's it. For me, I believe in what AEW is doing. I believe in the style. I believe in the genre. I believe it is actually the best wrestling in North America right now. I just want to drive that home. I want to be the guy so I want to just keep doing what I'm doing out here and just hope we can just keep freaking putting out these classic shows, man. The recent Dynamites and Collisions have been f*cking stellar."
"I’ve enjoyed it. I feel like I didn't realize the heights that I could reach here. It's just been like a crazy little ride and I feel like there's so much that I have done and I've experienced and I've not really digested it really well. There's things that I have digested. But I just love the environment. I do love the work ethic that I'm putting in and there's something about getting your gym bag and going to the gym, and actually putting your gym shoes on and doing it. For me there's something about that when I have my little bag and I've got me backpack, and I get on the airport, and when I get here, there's a little drive, and there's a little work ethic that comes out of me. I've got a mission, and I really want to stick to it, and I want to keep driving home. How much AEW is the best wrestling here. I've just got that mad work ethic right now."
"I mean, for me, it's All In. I think that's the one where I like, there's 40,000 seats. That's the biggest show that AEW does in North America. I really want to drive it home. I really want to put 40,000 seats in there. I don't know what the metric is, and I honestly have no idea what we have to do that. But I'm making myself available and I live in England, I'm making myself constantly available. So if I need to go down to Arlington, I'm more than happy to go down. I want to go do the schools. I want to go do the news reports. I want to go do everything. Because I feel like my passion comes out when I talk about AEW. I flipping love it. I love what I'm doing. It's completely changed my life, dude. Everything about my life has changed since we last spoke as well, and it's been a crazy ride where I'm just super grateful. This is meant to be our big show. It's All In for a reason. We're going all in for this one. So I want all hands on deck, and I really want to persuade all of our punters and all of our fans to come over to Arlington on that day and celebrate with us. What was the highest one that have done in North America was the 20,000 in Grand Slam? So that's 20,000 on the east. Then we had The Forum, and that was like, 15, 16,000 in there. Then you had North Carolina, which is 16,000. So it's possible, but you have to make it easy for these people to travel. You have to make it accessible for these people to do this stuff. And I just believe in it. I want everyone to come down and celebrate."
"I want to be the main event. I want it. The reason why I want it is because I think they trust me, and I think the fans trust me with what the presentation and what the look of AEW should be. I think that says a lot, because I've never had that trust. Even when I had it in Japan, it wasn't like they would give me Kobe and Osaka, those type of shows where there's 4,000 5,000 people, that's something that we can draw in. But ever since I've walked in here, I've come in with a great attitude of my whole mission is to build a team. I feel like whatever was going on in AEW before I got there I've helped out with trying to get everyone on the same page. It's hard for me to put into words sometimes, but the only thing that I can say is I think the audience trusts me, and I won't break that trust."
"The Bryan Danielson one I got real nervous on. That was a super crazy moment. I could not believe this was even happening to be honest with you. Because when I first got there and I done the Takeshita match, and then it was like straight afterwards, oh yeah we're going to do an angle with you and Bryan. I went already? So we had that. There's a moment where I'm standing there opposite him and it's just before the bell rings, we're standing there looking at one another. He's got this big smile on his face, and I just couldn't help but look around as being like man, there's 7,000 people in here. I thought for the life of me I would have been just a kid in Japan for the rest of my life. I thought that was that was going to be me, and then just to stand there and look at him and just be like, Oh my God, here it is. I said, 'Sir this is going to be a pleasure.' Then we backed up, the bell rang and I was just like, let's go. I've never felt more like I finally did it. When Bryan and Kenny stood in the ring, the bell rung and the f*cking place stood up. I always wanted to be one of those guys. And at that moment I was like oh sh*t, I finally did it. I'm one of those guys now."
"Yeah, of course I am. I always think about it. [You're in your prime right now] Yeah, you always got to think. I've got a bunch of houses that I'm looking at now to do the real estate side of things. But more importantly, I always think this is great, but one of these days I do want to have a normal life. Imagine just me knocking on your door, Royal Mail outfit, f*cking van over there. Didn't you used to be Will Ospreay? Yeah, I'd love that. It's great. But right now, the focus is being the best wrestler in the world, performing at the peak levels."
"Yeah, of course not. I'm confident in my abilities, and I'm confident with my audience. Does that make me the best? I don't know. Because I feel like the best is now so widely spread. Are you the guy that draws the most? Are you the guy that shifts the most merch? Are you best bell to bell? And I'll just go I'm the best. I was out with my kid watching Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall, and a guy came up and he takes a photo with me. Then Harry goes, Why does that happen all the time? I was just like, I don't know how to explain it to him, because he's six, and I have the mental capacity of a six-year-old. So I went, you know I do wrestling. He's like, Yeah. I said I'm like the best. That's the only way I could put it."
"I can't do the stuff that I used to do when I was 27. I can barely do a shooting star press now. I can still do it, but it takes a lot for me to do it, and it takes a lot of a build-up to do it. The body has locked up a little bit so then I had to adapt to my style."
"Yeah, he called me up. I'd done something stupid, I f*cked my neck up back in 2018 I've never been the same since then. It was against Marty. We did a Spanish Fly my f*cking head at the apron, but my neck contorted underneath me, and I just felt everything like a shot go down my arm. It was horrendous and I've never been the same since. But then the month after me and Kushida wrestling, and we did a DDT off the apron to the floor and I was fine. I was absolutely fine. I controlled my body on the landing, but it looked horrendous. Jericho got on the phone to me. It was just like, hey, look flipping hell, please don't die. You gotta look after yourself, pick your bumps. You don't need to be doing that type of stuff all the time. And that hit and I appreciated it, because especially at that time, Jericho only would pop over to New Japan every now and again. So the fact that he took his time out to be like, hey look, Rocky gave me your number I want to have a chat, let's talk. Every time I've been around Chris, he's always giving me great advice. Even being here, there’s promo things that I would do, and he went, Oh, who told you to do that? And I'd say this person told me he went, don't do that because of this reason. And when he explains it to me off, yeah, of course. So, he's been a real good hand to have backstage. And anytime I go, What do you think of this? He's great in his honesty."
"I mean, yeah, for sure. Because I want people to digest what they're seeing, because I still do those stupid bumps, like the tombstone off the apron on the stairs. That was kind of silly. Yeah, looked great and everyone reacted, which it happens. But I also now plan those spots where I go, and this is where everyone f*cking complains about AEW. I do it because, personally, it's like I just want to do it. I'm not like, f*cking kicking out and firing up and sh*t like that. I'm like, f*cking rolling my shoulder off and if people are popping off about it, sweet."
"No. But then if I've had gone there, they'd be f*cking w*nking into f*cking tissues over me. But it's the same. That's why you have to separate it, otherwise you drive yourself insane. I think if you have something, my wrestling is my passion, it's my job, most importantly. But if you have something that you're passionate about, you really don't care about what people are saying who have never impacted your career in your entire life. None of those people, once upon a time, they were big hits that anyone that's ever complained about AEW like the grifters or whatever they're called. I don't know if that's the right term. That's what everyone says. But even if they say something, it's like they're not impacting our show. We're the second most profitable wrestling company of all time. That's not talked about enough, and everyone wants to dig on it. I get it, there's things that we could generally improve on and I think it's fair to listen to some criticism. But for me, I don't lose sleep over anyone trying to tell me how to wrestle. Because now, look at me. I'm a f*cking idiot. I know I am, but I've carved out this little lane for myself. I was destined to be someone that either worked in McDonald's or pushed trolleys at Tescos. But because I grafted at this, and because I learned the trade over in England and over in Japan, and my enthusiasm, my passion comes over here, I don't let things like, oh this is sh*t. Why? Because it's sh*t. Well, that's not fair. If you give me criticism and you give me points that I can work on, then I'll try my best to work on it. I'm not going to get it right away, but I think that's the stuff that people need to speak more about."
"He was [talking about me]. I've got people that I won't throw under the bus, saying, Yeah, it was about me. I'm not taking it personally like, Oh, that hurt my feelings. It's just kind of like, all right, you take a jab at me, I'll take one back. There's nothing horrible about it. I don't hate the guy. I've never met him. How can I hate someone that I've never even met? [Have you even talked to him?] No, I've never spoken to him, I got an agency talk to everyone. I've told everybody about my situation and why I want to remain in the UK, which is why that kind of hurt me a little bit, but not to the point where it keeps me up at night. I was like, Okay, you took a jab at me, I'll take one back, and then that's it. We're done. Then someone was at this show that I was doing some stuff for Pro Wrestling Eve, and they do this thing called the Multiverse Rumble, and everybody dresses up as characters, and somebody dresses up as Triple H. I walked in here and I looked, I went I've got to do it now, haven't I? [Why'd you have to do it?] Because it's funny and if anyone doesn't think it's funny, then I can't tell you what your humor is, but my humor is, this is hilarious. I'm going to do it."
"Yeah, just narrowly missed it. But it is what it is, no issues with him on my side of things, I hope he's doing well. [That could have been a magic match]. It could have been, but things happen and like things transpire. For me, I've never had an issue with him. He's always been lovely to me."
"On the top of my glute, and then my pelvis. Because everyone thought it was just a scrape, it wasn’t. because those ropes are steel f*cking cable. So it hit my ass and put it back. Oh, mate. It was horrible. But I remember Tony being, you don't have to wrestle next week. No, mate. I'm good."
"I don't like thinking of it. I think I will one day just disappear. I will just go, Ah, this is me. I won't have anything really. [You won't have a final match?] Oh no, of course I will. But then that was the day I will grab the microphone on live TV and say the C word, and then just drop the mic, ruin this and then I'll just go be a postman somewhere. Like that big Sting retirement, where everyone's like coming out and like cupping their hands, tears in their eyes, and I just grab the microphone and go 'c*nt!' That's the way I want to go out."
"Family, AEW and all the support."
