Posted on 9/10/126 by Colin Vassallo
Will Ospreay sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Allen, Texas
to discuss winning the AEW World Championship at All In,
making history as the first English World Champion to win
the title in England, the emotional video package narrated
by his mom, how he celebrated his big win, returning from
his neck surgery in time for Wembley, kicking out of Kenny
Omega’s One Winged Angel, MJF claiming he is the true World
Champion, having the most Dave Meltzer five star matches
ever, and more!
So how did you come up with this now iconic entrance?
“It was obviously helped a lot. Mike Mansury, he’s one of
the lead producers for AEW, so he helped come up with it.
But my whole thing was I remember last year at Forbidden
Door when I went in the steel cage match, and I was trying
to think of a real cool entrance for that. I was just like,
I’d love it if I could do something there. But I had no idea
that Al [Alex Windsor] put down a voiceover for that
entrance. It stuck with me because it was scary going into a
steel cage match, knowing that I needed neck surgery, and I
was just so worried. I kept a real straight face with
people, and I was confident in a lot of the things that I
was doing in there, but then hearing Al’s voice come
through- the line that got me was, ‘If you’re not afraid of
what’s next, neither am I.’ It hit me so hard. It made me
just feel like I could run through a wall. Then to have that
feeling, I was just kind of like, I want my mum to do my
next one, just because my mum has seen me grow up through a
TV screen. When I was 22 years old, I got signed to New
Japan, and although I kept coming back to England, and I get
those tours, but a lot of it was like downtime and rest
because I was so battered and hurt. I think it was just one
of these things where I’d love to show my mom how much she
really meant to me, and I’d love to have had her do the
voiceover for one of the biggest nights of my life.”
So, what was the conversation when you asked your mom to do
that voiceover?
“We were in Orlando, and I said, ‘Mom, I’ve got like a
proposition for you. Do you remember the one that Al did for
me? I’d like you to do one for me.’ She was just like, ‘I’ll
do it now.’ Then she started writing it up. I said, ‘I don’t
want to hear it until the night.’”
Did that match live up to the expectations that you had for
it?
“Yeah, so much, man. It was just wild, just because going
into it, I had really no ideas. I had feelings that I wanted
to feel, but I didn’t know how to relay that in terms of the
match storytelling. It was only when me and Kenny sat down
and started talking about stuff, and then we just came
together, and it was just like idea, flow and idea, flow.
Honestly, I’d love to be able to tell you guys that when we
were hours from going on, and we found out that some people
that did stuff that we wanted to do in our match. So then it
put us under even more pressure to try and change things
around and try and fit it in within our story. It’s no one’s
fault. Things happen. I don’t blame anyone in that
situation, but it was just as frustrating as it was. What we
came up with, what our plan B was, was way, way, way better.
So, I was dead happy with that.”
Is there a particular spot in that match that you’re most
proud of?
“Yeah, we labeled it Plan B because our Plan A got ruined
because somebody done it in their match. So Plan B was One
Winged Angel, kick out at one, Stormbreaker, kick out at
one, then finish. I was proud of that one, but being honest,
the thing that will never leave me ever. Kenny allowing me
to kick out of the One Wing Angel. The significance and the
importance behind that move cannot be understated. He has
protected that move for 14 years. The only person to ever
kick out of it was Ibushi, who was his long-time tag
partner. The fact that he allowed me, and you think about
the historical feuds that he’s had: Okada, Tana, Ibushi,
Hangman, and he saved it for me. That’s like one of the
biggest honors and the biggest accomplishments I think I’ve
ever been given as a performer, as a wrestler.”
Do you get the feeling that Kenny Omega is starting to wind
down his career; he might not have any other big matches
like this?
“I think people need to realize how much of a toll it takes
on Kenny after his illness, and I don’t know the preparation
that he done to get into this match, but there were a few
shows that he couldn’t do because of how he’s feeling. I
want to believe that he’s still going to be doing some type
of big matches, but at that level, I really do not know.
That’s a question that you probably will have to ask Kenny.
But at 42 years old, for 10 years he’s been the best
wrestler in the world. There was a symbolism from some anime
show, a name escapes me from what it was, of a character
passing down his powers to the next generation, and that was
crazy. That is me.”
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With your injury, did you ever have to come to terms with I
may not ever wrestle again?
“I don’t know if I had that thought, but I had the thought
of I don’t think I’ll be able to wrestle the style that I’ve
popularized so much, and I think that was a thing that
really broke me a little bit because I just wanted to be
able to perform the way that I performed and the way that I
envisioned my pro wrestling, and I’d never once considered
that I needed surgery. Even with everything that was going
through with my neck, I never once thought it was as bad as
I needed a double fusion. I never once thought about that,
to be honest with you. But the moment that it became
apparent, my first question was going to be can I still
wrestle again? They said ‘Yes, but there’s going to be
limitations.’ You can’t do this anymore, you can’t do that
anymore.
Do you know, the one thing that they said to me, and I
talked to Cope about this because there was this kind of
like, ‘Yeah, you probably can’t take any more reverse Ranas
ever again.’ I just had this moment of like, what!? What do
you mean I can’t take a reverse Rana? It’s like my go-to.
Strike, strike, strike, something, reverse Rana, bam,
everybody lay down, right? That’s kind of like my go-to, but
it blew my mind because it wasn’t those moves that messed up
my neck and went down my arm. It was every time I took a
back bump, my arm would just shut off. So it was just kind
of like, oh man, that’s so weird. And obviously, Cope would
pull me to one side [and said] ‘No one cares about a reverse
Rana. They care about you.’ But obviously, once my surgery
was done on the rehab side, it was just kind of okay, let’s
play around to see what we can do. Obviously I went straight
into the feud with Moxley and the Death Riders. There was
one show that we did, I can’t remember where it was, but I
think we was with the United Empire Boys, and Moxley just
out of nowhere just goes ‘Take a piledriver,’ and I hadn’t
taken one in ages. I was like, oh, this is one of the moves
I wasn’t meant to be taking. Fine. Then after that, it was
just kind of like, all right. When we wrestle at Dynasty,
we’ll do it again, but we’ll up it a little bit more.
Absolutely fine. It was just kind of like, oh, okay. I
actually can do relatively all the things that I did
beforehand.”