Kenny Omega is a man with a foot in two very different worlds. In AEW, he's a member of The Elite, a lighthearted trio who are always down to have a good time and currently hold the AEW World Trios Championship, and in New Japan Pro Wrestling, he's “The Cleaner,” arguably the most popular gaijin wrestler in the promotion's history and the current holder of the IWGP United States Championship – a strap he secured after an incredible 6.25-star bout against the future of the sport, Will Ospreay.
Sitting down with his fellow AEW wrestler, Swerve Strickland, to talk about this very dichotomy and more on his Swerve City podcast, Omega noted that after missing nearly a year due to multiple surgeries and the recovery process, wanted to add a new wrinkle to his presentation, which, at the time, appeared to be trios wrestling.
“The difficult part, and I feel a lot of performers, especially athletes, will feel, ‘If I do all these surgeries and have to take all this time away, hopefully, it’s for the better and I can recover to the best of my ability and I come back 100%.’ I wasn’t as naive,” Omega said via Fightful. “I felt like, I needed to introduce a new layer and be a different version of myself when I come back. That’s when I heard about the Trios tag belts and felt, ‘Okay, this is a chance for us to work in a division that can look visibly different than all the other divisions.’ I didn’t want it to look like a tag match with a third guy. I don’t want The Elite to be the same old Elite. Things worked out and we were able to get the song by Kansas. I feel we came back with a whole new vibe, and then the Tokyo Dome thing falling into my lap.”
Did the Tokyo Dome thing – aka appearing at Wrestle Kingdom 17 in a main event bout versus Ospreay for the US Championship – actually fall into Omega's lap? Or is he just being modest, as once Tony Khan cracked open the Forbidden Door, it was only a matter of time before Omega returned to the promotion that made him? Either way, the results far exceeded even the most optimistic fan's wildest dreams.
Kenny Omega has nothing but nice things to say about Will Ospreay.
Though in a Kayfabe sense, the duo hate the ever-loving crap out of each other, since securing the strap and working an absolute banger against “The Commonwealth Kingpin” at Wrestle Kingdom 17, Omega has been surprisingly complementary of Ospreay, suggesting that he was actually a bit worried about the bout because of his advancing age.
“I was scared about that. You had a guy in Will Ospreay being heralded as one of the best in-ring guys in the world. He is incredible. He’s a machine, he can do it all. He’s strong, fast, and agile. He’s smart enough to get by on his tools. Will’s intellect and I love Will, at times it’s helped him more than being a detriment to him. There are thoughts that don’t cross his mind, and because they don’t cross his mind, he’s able to commit to something so crazy that he could end his own career. Now, I’m too old and have seen so many terrible things in my life, the hamster wheel is always turning, and I get gun shy sometimes. Before, it was like, I get gun shy when I think about it in the preparation phase or in training. Now, sometimes, I’m in the thick of it, I’m in the match, and I know I have to or might do this thing, and I’m getting scared. I need to get that out of me. That’s one of the cruxes of getting old. It’s getting old, wiser, but at the same time you kind of get a little soft. I don’t want to say it’s an intelligence issue with Will. He’s still in that phase where he feels invincible. We’ve all been there.”
Based on some of the spots Ospreay took in his match with Omega – remember that table spot? – it's clear “Billy Goat” is very much still in that “invincible” phase of his professional wrestling career. Still, in professional wrestling, sometimes being a bit gun-shy can lead to better overall matches, as it forces performers to really make their spots matter and craft a well-rounded effort worthy of a spot in the annals of history. Whether intentional or not, Omega-Ospreay II undoubtedly falls into that category.
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