On AEW television, Will Ospreay’s turned to Jon Moxley and the Death Riders for help getting cleared to wrestle again after Mark Davis targeted his surgically reconstructed neck, and in finding his killer instinct he believes you need to win the promotion’s World title.
In reality, Ospreay told Forbes‘ Rob Wolkenbrod that while his neck had been bothering him for more than a year at that point, last May “it started fucking destroying” him. That led to conversations with his medical team, surgery,
and rehab. The 33-year-old Brit credits his surgeon, but said the whole thing wouldn’t have been possible without his boss, AEW president and head of creative Tony Khan:
“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 fucking bill — bruv, it was more expensive than my fucking house. It was crazy.”
He also credits a WWE Hall of Famer now with AEW who has some experience with neck issues for helping him through the whole process:
“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…
“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.”
With nearly ten AEW and New Japan matches under his belt since returning in March after six months away, we’ve gotten a taste of the post-surgery Aerial Assassin. Ospreay explained how his approach changed, mentioning one specific move he’ll no longer do:
“There are so many things where I just don’t feel comfortable doing certain tricks anymore, so I’ve kind of knocked them on the head. For example, I won’t do a shooting star press anymore because that required me to really put my head back and get a good arch, and I just can’t do it anymore.“
Check out Will Ospreay’s full interview with Forbes here.
