Will Ospreay praises AEW coach Jerry Lynn: ‘He’s been a real guiding light’

Working with ECW legend Jerry Lynn has helped make Will Ospreay a better wrestler.

Lynn, a former ECW World Champion, joined AEW as a coach during the promotion’s inaugural year in 2019. Ospreay told Sports Illustrated that Lynn’s coaching has helped him a lot, especially when it comes to making his in-ring offense mean more.

“I’ll be honest. I’ve been working a lot with Jerry Lynn, and he’s been a real guiding light on how to make stuff a little bit more important for me in those matches,” Ospreay said. “So I do put a lot of love and admiration towards Jerry as he’s been such a great help in my matches.”

Ospreay has now been a full-time member of the AEW roster for more than a year. Because he’s working a regular schedule of TV matches, Ospreay has reigned in his style a little bit. He still wants to deliver on TV while saving some of his biggest moves for pay-per-view.

“A little bit, yeah,” Ospreay said about changing his style. “Because you can’t do those epic clashes on TV that much. It’s very rare that you can actually follow through with those epic New Japan-style main events. So you have to pick your spots wisely and now, I feel like I’m really finding my groove at the TV matches. And obviously, when the pay-per-view comes around, I just go balls out, and I hope that people respond well to the matches that I’m trying to put on.”

Ospreay defeated Kevin Knight at AEW’s Dynasty PPV this past weekend. With the victory, Ospreay advanced to the semifinals of the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. He’ll be facing either Brody King or Konosuke Takeshita in that round.

The winner of the Owen Hart Cup earns an AEW World Championship shot at All In Texas this July. The World title is currently held by Jon Moxley.