All Elite Wrestling’s upcoming pay-per-view Double or Nothing is extremely complicated for Will Ospreay. Stepping into the ring with Samoa Joe as part of the “Owen Hart Invitational” is both a full-circle moment for Ospreay’s illustrious career, as well as turning the page on a new chapter post-injury. The AEW superstar sat down to speak to SBNation.com about his upcoming match, his professional wrestling legacy, and gave us his Mt. Rushmore of people inside the business who have meant the most to him.
It was 21 years ago that a 12-year-old Will Ospreay decided he wanted to become a professional wrestler. Inspired by the legendary three-way match between A.J. Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels at TNA Unbreakable 2005, it was the match that solidified his future goals. “There was just something about how A.J. moved,” Ospreay said, “I’d never seen anything like that before.” Now inside of AEW he works alongside two of his idols, Christopher Daniels has retired from the ring, but works as head of talent relations — while Samoa Joe will be his opponent at Double or Nothing, the first time he’s faced off with Joe 1v1.
One of the big elements in the lead-up to this match has been the push-and-pull over Ospreay’s allegiances, courted on two sides by wrestling titans wanting to take Ospreay under their wing for this next chapter of his career. On the one side Samoa Joe, the man he looked up to — on the other, Jon Moxley, leader of the Death Riders. In recent weeks Ospreay has sided with Moxley’s crew, and it’s paid dividends. “The results speak for themself. I can’t argue with them,” Ospreay says when asked about his decision to train with The Death Riders, “we’ve been working on my neck, slowing things down, transforming me into something else.”
Heralded as being one of the best high-flyers in wrestling history, mounting injuries to Ospreay’s neck and back have forced an early form of reinvention at age 33. “I need to move a bit slower now,” he says, “but I think it could be a good thing.” Training with Moxley wasn’t intended as a slight on Joe (even though he took it as such), but rather a business decision for Ospreay that made the most sense, with Moxley offering to patch holes that had emerged in his game. Nonetheless, being on the wrong side of Samoa Joe is never a wise move — especially when Joe’s finisher, The Muscle Buster, is designed to target the neck of his opponents.
“It’s a scary drop, yeah. Trying not to really visualize being in that position. Obviously, Joe has the weight advantage, think he has the reach advantage too — so this is going to be a stick and move for me.”
Ospreay tells me he never looks too far into the future and takes everything one match at a time, because he never knows an injury could end it all. Still, he looks forward with incredible enthusiasm to being able to return to the U.K. for AEW All In, set to take place at Wembley Stadium on Aug. 30.
“That feeling never goes away,” Ospreay says of stepping into Wembley Stadium. “As a kid we all dreamed of competing in Wembley, imagining you’re a footballer like David Beckham, Paul Scholes, or Michael Owen, so to go out there now,” he trails off, appreciating the enormity of the realization. “It was just so special when I went out there in 2024. Everyone in the crowd is chanting me mum’s maiden name.”
Ospreay has broken the mold in many ways. The extensive training for professional wrestlers means that even the most promising talents tend not to really hit their stride until their mid-thirties. The modern era has created a scenario where it’s almost unheard of that someone starts competing at the highest level at an incredibly young age, but from the second Ospreay stepped into a professional ring, he’s been ahead of the curve. Debuting for Progress in the U.K. at age 21 and immediately winning over crowds, ascending in New Japan Pro Wrestling to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship at age 25. An innovator and icon before he was 30, I asked Ospreay what it’s like to be credited with pushing professional wrestling forward before really hitting his prime.
“Sometimes it feels like I’m past my prime, mate. I wake up and my back hurts, I’ve had neck surgery — but honestly, that is one of the greatest honors you can give me.”
In addition to the drama surrounding Samoa Joe for their match at Double or Nothing on Sunday, I asked Ospreay about two people from his past, now sharing the AEW locker room with him: Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis. The Australian duo formed the tag team Aussie Open, and they were part of Ospreay’s “United Empire” stable in Japan, but now have forged a different path with Don Callis — one that led to a massive rivalry in the past. It’s a complicated relationship, but that hasn’t stopped Ospreay from paying attention to his former partners.
“Kyle and Mark actually lived with me for a year in Japan. We formed a really close bond. Kyle, and I say this through gritted teeth, because I don’t like how he does things — but he’s become one of the best wrestlers in the world. As for Mark, the amount of hard work he’s put in. When Aussie Open broke up, I didn’t know what was going to happen, and he’s just worked so hard to have success with Don Callis.”
At this point, Ospreay has worked with almost everyone inside AEW, making it tricky to come up with a name of someone to have a match with who he hasn’t met yet — but Ospreay mentions Anthony Bowens as someone he really wants to go against, and as a member of The Opps (Joe’s group), Ospreay acknowledges that it could happen. The other match he really wants: Kenny Omega. “When he’s completely healthy, I want to finish the trilogy.”
I ask Ospreay for the eternally cliched “Mt. Rushmore of Wrestling” in his eyes, but with a twist: The four people who have meant the most to him personally inside the industry.
- A.J. Styles, for inspiring him with his movement, innovation, and body of work.
- Kazuchika Okada, for the kindness he showed Ospreay in NJPW and his overall ability as a wrestler
- Naomichi Marufuji, for pushing wrestling forward
- Kenny Omega, for being the wrestler Ospreay is always chasing to consider himself the best in the world
There’s this constant dichotomy with Will Ospreay where all conventional wisdom tells us he should be a staple in professional wrestling for a long, long time — but the wrestler himself talks with a degree of finality. That any match could be his last, that he’s battling through a hurt back, neck, and a variety of injuries, talking like a 30-year veteran of the industry. Still, he’s hungry for more. Not one to rest on his laurels, Ospreay wants to prove that he can be the ace of All Elite Wrestling, a term for a wrestler an entire company can build around. He speaks with pride of place, and a genuine love both for what got him to this point, and what comes next.
For now, he can only focus on his next match. Samoa Joe will be across from him on Sunday at AEW Double or Nothing, and it will be a defining moment. A chance to test himself against an idol, test his neck against injury, and forge a new path as a reinvented Will Ospreay. Now we wait to see what that looks like.
All Elite Wrestling Double or Nothing will air live from Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York on Sunday, May 24 starting at 8:00 p.m. ET on PPV.
