As AEW prepares to return to Chicago for the first show since Kenny Omega, and the Young Bucks, made their triumphant return at Full Gear, one question hangs above the entire event: will fans boo The Elite? Recall, if you will, that Chicago is CM Punk country, and after making his triumphant return to professional wrestling in the city in the house Michael Jordan built, the United Center, the 6,000+ fans in attendance may not be particularly excited about watching a show featuring one-half of the “Brawl Out” while their favorite son sits at home with no clear path to return to AEW potentially ever.

Sitting down with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Omega talked about his return to AEW, what can/can't be talked about legally in regards to the events after All Out, and how he feels about fans booing himself, the Jackson brothers, Nick and Matt, or even Punk.

“There are things no one can talk about, so I’d encourage people to let it go. It doesn’t change that we want a team effort in AEW. I don’t even mean implicitly myself and my opponent. It also means the referee, the fans, the people who set up the ring, everyone–even a technical error can ruin the memory of a match. I can refer back to the exploding barbed wire death match. So I encourage people to move away from it because there is no information to be released. Though I cannot talk about it, I do want the fans to know I still want the best for pro wrestling.”

“This isn’t Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks against CM Punk. It is people trying to show off their craft. You can boo Kenny Omega, or the Young Bucks, or CM Punk, but I hope people don’t forget we’re human beings struggling to show our art.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Omega explained his exaggerated entrance at Full Gear and how much the trio wanted to treat their fans to something special after two and a half months away.

“We knew we had to make it special for the fans,” says Omega. “It felt like we left people in limbo, so we had to come back emphatically. Our goal is to make wrestling feel like a rock concert. We wanted people to focus entirely on the match, and whether you were rooting for or against us, we wanted people to enjoy it. As soon as the music hit, we wanted it to be a spectacle. We wanted people to know they were in for a ride. Hopefully, everyone enjoyed the performance.”

Will The Elite get booed on the fallout edition of AEW Dynamite following Full Gear? Will the vitriol be so deafening that AEW has to mute the in-arena microphones to drown out the F-Bombs? Only time will tell, but if there's any episode of Dynamite to watch throughout the remainder of the year, this would be the one.

AEW's Kenny Omega opens up about his long-awaited return to Japan

Elsewhere in his interview with Barrasso, Omega finally spoke on his forthcoming return to Japan in a match against Will Ospreay at New Japan Pro Wrestling's biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom.

“I’m returning to New Japan as an ambassador of AEW,” says Omega. “I’m returning to New Japan as an ambassador of pro wrestling. I’m also returning home. I left to start this new, exciting opportunity, but it’s still home. Now the things Will can do are things I cannot. He’s an athletic phenom. But as finely tuned as he is physically, he still hasn’t doesn’t have the knowledge or experience. I pushed my own physical boundaries in All Japan and DDT, but that’s not what I’m known for. My mind is my greatest asset, not my athleticism. That’s what’s allowed [Hiroshi] Tanahashi to have such a long and flavorful career.

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“I needed someone to take my place in New Japan, I wanted someone to take my place–and it was Will, Jay [White], and [Kota] Ibushi. Will is the only one to have a problem with that.”

Now, as fans of AEW, NJPW, or just wrestling in general surely already know, Omega and Ospreay have been feuding for years, with the former accusing the latter of being a poor replacement for him when he jumped ship from Japan to America to help start a wrestling company with The Jacksons, Cody Rhodes, and Tony Khan, while the latter considers “The Best Bout Machine” an out-of-touch old man who won't let the kids have their say, if you will. When they wrestled in America in the lead-up to the AEW World Trios Championship finale at All Out, the two performers gave a glimpse at just how glorious a singles bout could be but unfortunately, because the match also included the Young Bucks and Aussie Open, they didn't get to deploy the full psychology of a match of that caliber deserves. With a choice spot on the Wrestle Kingdom card now available and a 20-40 minute match without commercials all but surely being laid out as you read, this match has the potential to be an all-timer, with five-stars being the absolute base-level minimum.

“I had to speak in Japanese to remind him that he doesn’t have home court advantage,” Omega said. “This is still my home.”