Will Ospreay is one win away from destiny at AEW Forbidden Door

Will Ospreay never dreamed of this. Because in his own words, it was a thought so unfathomable, even dreaming it felt impossible to his imagination.

But when the 33 year-old from Rainham, Essex steps foot in the ring opposite Swerve Strickland on Sunday at Forbidden Door, he will be a three-count away from turning a dream into destiny.

The winner of the clash between Ospreay and Strickland will win the Owen Hart Memorial Cup and go on to main event All In at Wembley Stadium with the AEW World Championship on the line – something that, even today, the man many believe to be the best wrestler in the world is having a hard time comprehending.

“I couldn’t tell you, mate,” Ospreay said when asked what he envisions when he pictures competing for the world title in his home country. “I’m being brutally honest with you. It’s just like, how can you tell? Like, if we were to go back to when I was wrestling in my garden when I was, 14 years old, my mum and dad bought me a wrestling ring and put it in my garden because they were like, ‘It saves him. It saves him from going out into the streets.’

Not only did Ospreay’s parents support a dream that many at the time would have called unusual and unrealistic, he credits his mother for his showmanship and yearning to be an entertainer.

“My mom ran an amateur drama group in Rainham,” Ospreay said. “And I say amateur, like it was done at a very low budget. So I always had like a feeling that performing was kind of in me. I was very much a performative person, and that may stem back to my mum.”

And while the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion didn’t picture Wembley Stadium being a possibility when he was a child, he did know that wrestling was what he wanted to do – no matter how odd it seemed to everyone around him.

Recounting a pivotal point of his childhood, Ospreay details a day in school in which every student was asked to say aloud what they want to be when they grow up.

“Obviously, in England, wrestling was never super popular,” Ospreay said. I remember it so well. I remember the room, the teacher.  I remember everyone going around the classroom and, like, saying what they wanted to be when they grew up. And I said I wanted to be a wrestler. And everyone f–king laughed. It was so embarrassing. It genuinely felt horrible to have that type of humiliation towards it.”

Ospreay eventually did reach the height of every young English boy’s dream. In 2023, while still a member of the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster, he faced Chris Jericho at All In – the highest-paid attendance show in pro wrestling history at 81,035 fans.

“I was sh–ting my pants, mate,” Ospreay said with a laugh. “I did an indie the day before, and we wrestled in front of 4,000 people, which was a big number for Revolution Pro Wrestling. It was huge – it was five percent of the audience that we were going to wrestle in front of. I had a genuine moment of like, ‘Oh, my God, maybe I’m a bit out of my depth here. I don’t think that many people know me.’ So to come out on that first night and hear people singing my song, I was blown away.”

His win over Jericho, and presentation as a whole through the build up, was what Ospreay called the “final piece” to him officially signing with AEW.

“Tony Khan put a lot of trust me to be in that because once again, I wasn’t signed to aew,” Ospreay said. “I was brought in as a favor that New Japan really wanted. They thought it would be a real cool opportunity for not only me, but for the company to showcase themselves and say like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is our boy.’ And they allowed me to do it and Tony allowed me the good gracious to come out and to perform. And after that, there was a level of trust between us.”

Ospreay’s match with Jericho came after a pair of instant classic bouts with the man who ran New Japan before him, and went on to be one of the founding fathers of AEW – Kenny Omega.

The two had a bitter rivalry leading into their match at Wrestle Kingdom 17, a bout that saw Omega defeat Ospreay for the IWGP United States Championship in what quickly became a Match of the Year contender and will go down as one of the best bouts in pro wrestling history. That following June, Ospreay defeated Omega at Forbidden Door to win the title back in another barn-burner. Five months later, he made his AEW signing official.

In that time since joining the company, the real-life rivalry between Ospreay and Omega has blossomed into a friendship.

“It’s grown a lot,” Ospreay said of his relationship with Omega. “Especially from where we were. There was a time period where me and Kenny were very much at each other. It was a very real situation, and everyone saw it play out, especially on social media. It was something that was very volatile… I felt like I was doing everything Kenny wanted me to do [in New Japan]. And the reality is he was saying things to downplay what I was doing and to make me feel like I was nowhere near the likes of a Kenny Omega. And I know I’m nowhere near Kenny Omega – but he’s also nowhere near Will Ospreay. And I think that’s something we both respected going forward.”

Over the last number of weeks, we’ve seen vignettes of the two stars backstage speaking with one another, the first coming after Dynasty, where Omega was defeated by MJF, failing to recapture the AEW World Championship – a title he hasn’t held since losing it to “Hangman” Adam Page at Full Gear in 2022. Ospreay also came out on the losing end at Dynasty, falling to AEW Continental Champion Jon Moxley. The two comforted and encouraged one another, with Ospreay telling Omega not to give up on becoming world champion once again.

“For a long time, I felt like I was chasing Kenny Omega,” Ospreay said. “And to be in a position now where we’re very much friends, we’re very chummy with one another, he confided in me, I confided in him – I have such a love and respect for him. And my hope is that he hasn’t given up on being that guy because the world only has one Kenny Omega.”

Omega will face New Japan’s Zack Sabre Jr. at Forbidden Door, and he has made it clear that should he win, he is coming for the world championship at the appropriately-named Redemption pay-per-view in July. The two enemies-turned-friends are 1-1 in singles competition against one another. The first came in Tokyo, the second came in Omega’s native land of Canada. Ospreay says it would be poetic should the grudge match come in his homeland, but also because the time could be running out to have that third singles match.

“I think a lot of people would really want to see Will Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega because I don’t think there’s ever going to be a time period where they could see it again.”

Ospreay also knows that should he win the Owen and headline All In, his opponent could be the same man he faced in Wembley in 2024 – current world champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

“I cannot look away from what Max has done for AEW and the attention that he brings to being world champion,” Ospreay said. “He can really pat himself on the back and every, every bit of appreciating that he has, like it is very well deserved.”

Ospreay didn’t want fans to think that he’s warmed up to the self-proclaimed “Salt of the Earth,” though.

“He’s still a piece of sh*t.”

But before he can think hone in on the world title and the main event of AEW’s biggest show of the year, he has to get through Swerve Strickland – a former AEW Champion and All In main eventer in his own right, and a man Ospreay has never defeated in an AEW ring.

“This is a guy whose code I have not been able to crack and find the answer for,” Ospreay said of Strickland. “We’ve had so many battles up and down, up and down America. We’ve had so many battles in the UK and Europe. And I think that’s why, I think that’s why we are two, like, firework starters in AEW. Because our relationship and our history is very real.”

Even with the long history and friendship between two of the best that AEW has to offer, Ospreay will stop at nothing to reach the top of a mountain so many told him he’d never climb.

“I love Swerve,” Ospreay said. “I respect him. But this is something I’ve needed for a long, long time.”

He is within reach of the top of a mountain no one thought he’d ever climb. And while being just a few steps away, Ospreay feels one overarching feeling above any other – gratitude.

“It’ll be a very real emotion that will come out of me because the journey has been so amazing and I’ve got to be truly blessed with one of the best lives that I could ever be given,” Osprey said. “And I hope that if this does happen, it inspires every child. Even if they aren’t wrestling fans. Just anyone with a big dream just had a dream – chase it. Because all I did was just chase this feeling – this insane flipping high and the peak of pro wrestling. And man, I’m nearly there.”