Matt Hardy worries about Will Ospreay’s neck, and he is speaking as somebody who has had the same surgery.
Ospreay had spinal fusion surgery last year and returned in March. He challenges Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship in the main event of All In at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
Hardy raised it on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy while discussing the physical demands of the modern style, and prefaced it by making clear where he stands on Ospreay.
“I think Will’s a great guy. I like him a lot. Obviously, I’m a big fan of his work. He busts his a**, and there’s no way you can’t respect someone who works as hard as he does.”
The concern is specific, and it is medical.
“But just still having that fusion surgery too, that’s something I always worry about, because it’s tough. When you start getting those levels fused, it makes you a lot more susceptible to injuring your neck again.”
Hardy has had the same procedure. He has spoken previously about the toll of a career built on high-risk offence, and in the same conversation said he would tell his younger self to do considerably less.
“If I could go back and listen to Matt Hardy from the 2010s or whatever, and just chill with the leg drops and not do everything quite so much, I would definitely change stuff. Sometimes you don’t really get it until you get hurt, or your body gets beat up enough, so you have to change your style.”
He was clear that the situation is far better than it once was.
“You remember back in the day, that was one of those things that, especially before technology and the surgical capacity to actually go in and make that where it’s something you can still wrestle again, there were a lot of guys that would get that and it would be the end of their career. They just wouldn’t wrestle anymore.”
“It’s great how far technology and obviously surgery has come along.”
Ospreay is not the only wrestler Hardy named while discussing the style. He said elsewhere in the same conversation that no-selling has become too common at AEW, and that the Young Bucks, Ospreay and Swerve Strickland all work that way, while stressing he does not object to it in moderation.
Ospreay has been open about the injury himself. He wrestled through the problem for a period before having it addressed, and has talked publicly about adjusting what he does as a result.
Kevin Owens is the most prominent recent comparison. He had neck fusion surgery in July 2025, was told there was a chance of lasting effects because of the severity of the damage to his spinal cord, and did not return until SummerSlam this month, thirteen months after the operation and seventeen after his last match.
“The severity of my injury and the damage to my spinal cord was so severe that even though they decompressed my spinal cord a lot, fixed a lot in there, there are still chances that I’d have lasting effects of the damage,” Owens said.
The wider argument about how much wrestlers should be doing has run through the industry all year. The Undertaker, Kevin Nash and AJ Styles have all made versions of it, with Cody Rhodes pushing back and saying some of the veterans telling younger wrestlers to do less are doing it because they could never do more.
Hardy has had a fusion himself and has said he would tell his younger self to do considerably less. He put it as wishing he could go back and talk to the version of himself working in the 2010s, and chill with the leg drops, adding that most wrestlers do not understand the argument until their body forces them to.
Hardy is 51 and now works for TNA both on screen and behind the scenes. He was with AEW from 2020 to 2023.
All In takes place at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, August 30. Hardy said he can see Ospreay being crowned champion.
