Will Ospreay took his neck recovery seriously.
During an interview with Forbes, “The Aerial Assassin” spoke about talking to multiple wrestling legends and active competitors during his neck recovery, and how AEW President Tony Khan covered the cost of the expensive surgery that came with it.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On talking with Adam Copeland about his neck issues: “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.”
On talking with Kyle O’Reilly, Bryan Danielson and others as well: “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.”
On Tony Khan covering the cost for the neck operation, which was more expensive than his house: “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**king bill — bro, it was more expensive than my f**king house. It was crazy.”
.@WillOspreay opens up about @AEW return to @Forbes' @WolkenRob: https://t.co/hoE5QlkXsK
— AEWPR (@AEWpress) May 6, 2026
