Will Ospreay is heading into AEW Double or Nothing with a match he says has been a long time coming. He will face Samoa Joe in the Owen Hart Invitational, and for Ospreay it will be the first time he has ever met Joe one-on-one.
Ospreay said Joe was one of the wrestlers who helped push him toward the ring in the first place. He said he decided at 12 years old that he wanted to become a professional wrestler, and that watching Joe in the landmark three-way match with A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels at TNA Unbreakable 2005 left a mark he never forgot. “There was just something about how A.J. moved,” Ospreay said, adding, “I’d never seen anything like that before.”
That makes this matchup feel like more than a tournament bout. Joe is now the opponent on the other side of the ring, while Daniels, another man from that 2005 match, has retired and works in AEW as head of talent relations. Ospreay said the results of Joe’s career make the matchup impossible to dispute. “The results speak for themself. I can’t argue with them,” he said.
The match also arrives at a time when Ospreay has been forced to adjust the way he works. He has sided with Jon Moxley and the Death Riders in recent weeks, and he said they have been “working on my neck, slowing things down, transforming me into something else.” Ospreay, who is 33 years old, said injuries to his neck and back have made him rethink the pace and shape of his matches. “I need to move a bit slower now,” he said, “but I think it could be a good thing.”
That is where the tension sits. Joe brings the size edge, and Ospreay said the match could be uncomfortable from the opening bell. “It’s a scary drop, yeah. Trying not to really visualize being in that position. Obviously, Joe has the weight advantage, think he has the reach advantage too — so this is going to be a stick and move for me,” he said. The plan is simple: stay mobile, avoid getting trapped, and make every exchange count.
For Ospreay, there is another event already pulling at him. He is looking ahead to AEW All In at Wembley Stadium on Aug. 30, where he will return to a place that still carries real weight. He said appearing at Wembley in 2024 felt special, and that the crowd chanting his mum’s maiden name made the moment even bigger. “That feeling never goes away,” he said. “As a kid we all dreamed of competing in Wembley, imagining you’re a footballer like David Beckham, Paul Scholes, or Michael Owen, so to go out there now,” he said. With Double or Nothing coming first, Ospreay gets the rare chance to face a career influence in Joe before turning toward one of the biggest nights of his own year.
