Will Ospreay is now three days into his reign as AEW Men’s World Championship after beating Kenny Omega at AEW All In. But Ospreay didn’t roll out of bed as a kid and suddenly become a wrestler, and like everyone else, his origin story is unique. And it began, as Ospreay revealed during an interview with “Muscle and Fitness,” with him sitting on the couch, watching TV with his father, when they came across pro wrestling. From that moment forward, Ospreay was hooked.
“I think he was, like, flicking between a Chelsea game and maybe ‘Star Trek,‘” Ospreay said. “And, I just got fascinated by it, and just kept tuning in.”
Ospreay didn’t begin wrestling training right away though, instead developing his wrestling instincts through another form of entertainment; drama. That was thanks to Ospreay’s mother Sue running her own drama academy, which Ospreay took part in.
“She would bring in dance teachers, so I got a sense of rhythm straight away,” Ospreay said. “I understood how to time things.”
Though he may not have known it at the time, Ospreay was also already studying tape of what he wanted to do as a wrestler. And the wrestler he was looking at the most was a high flying former WCW Cruiserweight Champion, who had one particular move that captivated the young “Aerial Assassin.”
“Watching WCW, and seeing Billy Kidman do a shooting star press, I’d pause it, rewind it,” Ospreay said. “Where do his arms go? I broke down little bits about it, and then I would just go into my garden and try it on the trampoline.”
Ospreay’s trampoline adventures inspired his mother to sign him up for a trampoline class, though Ospreay quit soon after because he found the class redundant. He would begin properly training for wrestling at the Dropkixx Wrestling school, but was kicked out after performing backyard wrestling, later catching on instead with the London School of Lucha Libre. The rest, as they say, is history.
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