While recovering from a neck injury, AEW star Will Ospreay took to social media to acknowledge the match that launched his own journey in professional wrestling. Responding to a post from Christopher Daniels, Ospreay cited the legendary three-way bout between Daniels, AJ Styles, and Samoa Joe at TNA’s Unbreakable 2005 pay-per-view as the catalyst for his career.
Ospreay made his motivation clear in the post, detailing the match’s direct impact on him. “The reason why I bought a pair of kick pads and tried shooting star presses. Thank you to all 3 for inspiring me to try this wrestling b—locks,” he wrote.
The match is widely regarded as one of the best in TNA history and ended with Styles reversing an Angel’s Wings into a pinning combination to win the X Division Championship. The tribute connects multiple eras, as both Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, who now serves as AEW’s Head of Talent Relations, are part of the same locker room as Ospreay.
This moment of reflection comes as Ospreay is sidelined and set to undergo surgery. In an interview with The Takedown on SI, he confirmed having “a few herniated discs pushing against my spinal cord.” The injury was used to write him off television following a storyline attack by Jon Moxley and the Death Riders in the Lights Out Steel Cage match at Forbidden Door.
According to Sports Illustrated, a typical recovery for such a procedure is around 12 weeks, potentially clearing the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion for a return in late November.