I was at the O2 Arena in London for Forbidden Door 2025 when Jon Moxley stomped on the steel chair wrapped around Will Ospreay’s neck, stamping into my mind, along with many others, that All In 2026 would be when Will Ospreay finally wins the AEW World Championship.
The pathway to Wembley has been interesting, to say the least. As someone playing catch-up and having seen many moments that have confused and conflicted some fans, making them question the complexity and choices of this triangular build featuring Ospreay, Moxley, and champion Kenny Omega, it feels like AEW is struggling with kayfabe.
There are two layers of kayfabe that envelope Will Ospreay, and a third real-world perspective we’ll discuss at the end. All these aspects make the conundrum of the Billy GOAT pursuing his boyhood dream abnormal. Although to an extent, it’s hardly the first time in wrestling, or even AEW.
The first layer is the story for many AEW fans, the hardcore sickos, who knew Ospreay from NJPW was Kenny Omega’s successor by the early 2020s. As a wrestler, Ospreay had everything to be NJPW’s standard-bearer. Yet when Ospreay announced in November 2023 that he would become All Elite in February 2024, AEW had to rightly change the narrative.
The GOATs Got to Define What Elite Means
AEW doesn’t operate like NJPW. AEW has weekly TV, and although similar, the in-ring style and storytelling differ, with Western fans having different expectations. The type of character Ospreay was in Japan, like Kazuchika Okada, could not be a pure copy-and-paste of what worked elsewhere. For starters, not every AEW fan kept up with NJPW.
Repeating the past would be lazy and unsustainable. Ospreay and AEW needed a clear sense of direction or purpose. Especially given AEW was in a re-establishing phase after Brawl Out and CM Punk’s exit. AEW’s pre-existing ecosystem was still recovering after an influx of former WWE wrestlers who failed to either adapt or mesh with the philosophy and spirit of what it meant to be All Elite.
AEW and Ospreay started with a compromise, but not WWE-style. No new name, new gimmick, and ignoring the past. Rather, making Ospreay a weekly TV character with dimensions, retraining fans to see the puzzle as incomplete, recalibrated fan expectations. The goal: to make Ospreay an attraction away from the title picture while other established wrestlers took the main event and became new pillars.
Arguably, it’s taken a long time. For years, AEW asked us, the fans, to pretend that the Aerial Assassin needed to achieve certain goals in the storyline and find those pieces to be ready to become a world champion, despite being ready from the get-go. Although Ospreay was missing puzzle pieces, not just as a wrestler, but as a personality to carry weekly North American wrestling programming. Ospreay had to evolve as a character fans would go to war for, like Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland.
Plus, Ospreay had to reform his well-earned reputation as a dullard.
Becoming the Feeling, Avoiding the World Title
Whether through edgelord rants and arguments on X, or accusations during the Speaking Out Movement of blackballing a female wrestler, Ospreay had to become something new. What Ospreay chose to do was become a fan favorite, even as a heel, while embodying the ethos of AEW as the future of the promotion’s in-ring style, metaphorically connecting himself to the missing sense of Feeling. Still in crisis, Ospreay became a beacon for what the work in the ring could look like.
Alone, this could have been flimsy.
Immediately, in the ring, Ospreay did not have the adjustment issues some former WWE stars experience. As a character, Ospreay seemed to relish the work required on the microphone to translate himself into a new persona: the cheeky Essex lad, fighting for his family and for the future of the sport. Many fans got behind Ospreay. Some felt that if AEW were a meritocracy, the fresh face should have had a chance with the belt early in 2024.
Instead, we got diversions that, at times, like the current saga with the Death Riders and Omega, felt clunky. The Don Callis Family Saga produced kick-ass contests, elevating Kyle Fletcher and Konosuke Takeshita. Also, some questionable melodrama that went with it. The story of Ospreay’s moral conflict of using the Tiger Driver 91 after defeating Bryan Danielson paid off amazingly at All In 2024. Before, there was some excruciating WWE soap opera that took some fans out of matches.
Overall, time and nostalgia remove the wrinkles and airbrush the disjointed elements of the connective tissue. Impressively, the way AEW handled Ospreay allowed Swerve Strickland’s ascension to the top tier and Page’s second title run without being overshadowed. Repeatedly, AEW found ways to have their cake and eat it with Ospreay. But that could only last so long.
Ironic Mirroring of Omega’s First Reign
Perhaps like Kenny Omega’s first run, we’re not getting the exact version of the Billy GOAT we want to see. Omega’s first reign was draped in the same kayfabe Ospreay’s story and character wear. Rather than Omega’s reign being purely about being The Best Bout Machine, it was about Omega, in kayfabe, not feeling like he could be the same icon he was in Japan.
Omega instead became the caricature of a headliner, parodying Harley Race/Triple H and others, surrounded by protection and the Invisible (but active) Hand of Don Callis. It was fun. It was awesome for the time, but not what many hardcore fans wanted. Unlike now, where, ironically, Omega’s real-life circumstances truly mean he’s fighting against something real and tangible: time and entropy dismantling his body.
It’s a story that some want to see continue past All In. Even though many know it will not, because it would subvert the expectations of Wembley and have that big Wembley main event that could. For modern UK fans, it could be our Bret Hart vs. British Bulldog. To subvert it could be… well, that’s speculation.
Although I’ll acknowledge some UK AEW fans don’t want Ospreay to have the belt. There are justified reasons we will get to.
The same sort of wrestling kayfabe-required mental block we see with Ospreay. Yet in the reverse direction with age. Whereas Omega’s story was about being too old, Ospreay’s seems to be about being too young. Kayfabe that feels hollow given the recent dethroning of a 3-time world champion; MJF is 30, three years younger than Ospreay.
In the dynamic with Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley, the common joke is that Ospreay is picking his father figure. Ospreay is the child.
Will Ospreay- A Man Child
We’ve seen in wrestling history the story of the wrestler pursuing their boyhood dream. Perhaps the earliest marketed version was Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XII. Easily forgotten, Michaels had his trainer, Jose Lothario, in his corner then and throughout that ill-fated first run. Michaels was 30. Ospreay is 33.
In AEW, choosing a coming-of-age story for a man already considered a graduate wrestling genius, with a step-kid who needs a mentor to find that killer instinct, ignores that Ospreay already left one father figure in Callis.
Yes, people repeat their patterns of behavior. The story of Ospreay’s neck was interesting. Even linking Moxley’s day one history with Omega, again tying back to Omega’s first title run, further weaves Ospreay into AEW and Omega’s history. It ties back to the wider idea of the different philosophies of what it means to be All Elite that emerge from Moxley and Omega’s monumental feud. But it undermined Ospreay as a man and main eventer in the same way that Michaels needing his trainer knocked HBK’s cool factor.
Presenting Ospreay as infantilized and childlike, picking between warring parents/hero figures feels unnecessary and WWE-lite. While there is still time for developments and change before All In, for clarity and redirection to like in all three wrestlers’ pasts, airbrush the disjointedness in the history annals. It doesn’t put Ospreay on firm footing in the short term.
On the night, in Wembley, football didn’t come home, but Will Ospreay metaphorically scored the winning goal, bringing the AEW World Championship to England, and would be an all-timer. Afterward, the same post-chase blues that have derailed many of a top babyface’s title reigns.
On the other hand, let’s get to that third real-life layer of perception: Ospreay is still a man-child. This cuts two ways.
Old Behavior Anew
For a time, Ospreay was able to shift perceptions of himself as someone who had grown up. As a family man, he is raising his stepson and is recently married to fellow AEW roster member Alex Windsor. Giving back to wrestling as a producer for Pro Wrestling: EVE helped Ospreay’s reputation.
Recent screenshots of David Finlay’s infamous tweet to Flip Gordon have made the rounds ahead of Redemption. For those unaware, Finlay said to Flip Gordon, “You’re the dumbest person I know, and I know Ospreay.”
You’re the dumbest person I know and I know Ospreay. https://t.co/vgo8ghWdvA
— David Finlay (@THEdavidfinlay) September 16, 2020
We’ve touched on Ospreay’s past, which recent events have brought back to the surface by highlighting Ospreay’s naivety and lack of awareness. Ospreay’s comments on June 17 about his sexual relationship with Alex Windsor caught attention. Yet Ospreay readdressed this comment in a follow-up promo that some fans felt was an unnecessary retort.
Again, Speaking Out history resurfaced with Ospreay’s association with former UK indy wrestler Paul Robinson, whom Ospreay thanked in a tweet for his help with Pro Wrestling Eve’s Wrestle Queendom VIII. Robinson was accused of taking advantage of a 16-year-old girl. The accusation was deleted, but given that EVE is an all-women’s promotion, it’s understandable that some fans would want answers.
There is a difference between the man and the idea, as I wrote about earlier this year with Hangman Adam Page and that photograph with Marty Scrull. Having done an entire series on Wrestling and Cancel Culture, nuanced conversations are required, based on the severity of what individuals have done, to rebuild trust. Undoubtedly, the real can break immersion with all layers of kayfabe. With Ospreay, onscreen and off-screen presentations portray AEW’s future world champion as at least immature and, at worst, someone putting female wrestlers at risk and breaking kayfabe.
Still a Boy from Essex
Ospreay was and will remain a polarising figure. His character, which may be an extension of himself, the Essex lad, is an exaggeration of more than a British stereotype.
Having grown up, gone to university, and played rugby with Ospreay-style lads, who I imagine exist in other guises in other cultures, I know that beneath the good-times-only vibes, hypermasculine and high-testosterone, can be an insidious, misogynistic, and discriminatory culture. At the same time, I’ve met plenty who, singularly and within their pack of mates, won’t stand for toxic masculinity and discrimination against anyone. A stereotype is just that, a generalization.
Yet as someone of Ospreay’s generation, despite being a shoot English teacher, in charge of a department, with a mortgage and responsibilities, I hardly feel like I’m an adult. Outside of lad culture, there are several of us, regardless of gender, who don’t feel fully grown-up.
Ospreay has that realness and authenticity that resonates with fans like me. He’s still the boy from Essex. However, there are two problems from the storytelling perspective.
First, as a world champion, if this is a coming-of-age story, the character needs to grow up sooner rather than later.
Second, just because I can see elements of myself in Ospreay doesn’t mean I or others can overlook his past behavior or repeat it.
Good grapes don’t deal with other problems. I think, importantly, whilst Ospreay has ADHD and has spoken about potentially having autism, for those with less awareness, it’s important to recognize that neurodiversity doesn’t excuse poor behavior. But we’ve already seen this year that someone with real heat for his real-life issues can win fans over. Just look at MJF’s character adjustments during his second World title reign.
Here’s hoping at Wembley 2026, when Ospreay scores the winning goal and holds up that championship, that both the character and man grow up fast to embody the Feeling of AEW that has been looking to recapture since Ospreay’s arrival, without room for criticism in or out of the ring.
