Will Ospreay was actually backstage when CM Punk and Jack Perry’s infamous AEW All In fight broke out, but he had no idea what he was watching at first. Ospreay genuinely thought Punk and Perry were cutting a promo until he saw Punk walk past him and realized something had gone very wrong.
While speaking to Ariel Helwani on August 25, the Aerial Assassin recalled being backstage at Wembley Stadium preparing for his own match when he suddenly heard a commotion nearby. He admits he thought they were cutting a promo.
“I was there at the Punk and Jack Perry thing. I was going over the match in my head, and I was there thinking to myself, ‘I need to get this right,’ making sure everything was going on in my head. I then heard a commotion, and I thought they were cutting a promo! Then I saw Punk move past me, and I was like, ‘Oh no.’ I know exactly what happened.”
Ospreay wasn’t an AEW regular at the time. He was still primarily working for NJPW and had come into All In to face Chris Jericho, so he wasn’t exactly caught up in everything happening behind the scenes between Punk and Perry. Seeing it happen right in front of him was apparently enough. Ospreay said it was strange going from reading about wrestling drama online to suddenly witnessing some of it himself backstage.
“So it’s funny because you read s*** all the time on the internet, and just to see it in front of you, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s lame,’ because every time I’ve been there, it’s been super enjoyable.”
His own experiences with AEW had been completely different. Ospreay remembered enjoying his appearances for the company before eventually signing there, including his Forbidden Door matches and other one-off appearances.
“Like, I loved coming to AEW every time I did a Forbidden Door or did a random spot match like the trios. The environment was great, and it doesn’t feel like it’s changed since I came back.”
More than two years later, Ospreay believes there’s actually less animosity backstage than there was around that period. He also stopped short of pretending he knew everything that led to AEW becoming such a tense place at the time.
“There’s less of an animosity toward one another, but I can’t comment on it because I wasn’t there.”
The Punk-Perry fight eventually became one of the biggest backstage stories in AEW history, with Punk being fired following the incident and Perry being suspended. Ospreay, meanwhile, was standing nearby preparing to wrestle in front of Wembley Stadium and initially thought the whole thing was part of the show.
What do you make of Will Ospreay’s eyewitness account of the CM Punk and Jack Perry altercation? Let us know in the comments.
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