Folks, in case you haven't heard, Kenny Omega has officially returned to an AEW ring. That's right, after 277 days away, “The Best Bout Machine” has made his triumphant return to an AEW ring to face off against one of his final pre-injury opponents in Lucha Libra AAA, Andrade El Idolo, as part of the AEW World Trios Championship Tournament.

The match, which also featured the Brotherly duos of the Young Bucks plus Rush and Dragon Lee, was an exciting, hard-hitting affair that got the crowd screaming and put the entire AEW roster on notice. While it wasn't perfect, as Omega worked rusty, his team ultimately secured the win with quite possibly the ugliest “One-Winged Angel” of all time and advanced to the second round to face off against either Death Triangle or The United Empire, both of which are teams that Omega has extensive experience wrestling (more on that here).

For fans at home, their next chance to see Omega will come on Friday's edition of AEW Rampage, where Tony Khan has already stated that there will be a recap of the post-main event Dynamite angle that also featured Dragon Lee's unmasking, but for fans in the arena, they were greeted to a shoot-y promo by “The Cleaner” that may just hint at his role moving forward.

Fortunately, one generous fan decided to film the affair and post it on Twitter for the rest of the wrestling world to enjoy.

Kenny Omega had a lot to say after his AEW return.

“Somehow, by a stroke of luck, and because these guys (the Young Bucks) are even better than you think they are – they're incredible –  we were able to survive tonight,” Omega said to the legions of adoring fans hanging on his every word following his return to the AEW ring in West Virginia.

“Don't all of a sudden start cheering us,” asserted Matt Jackson, who briefly took the microphone, “you all booed us for, like, a year.”

“He's got a point,” Omega said. “And maybe I should be mad too; maybe I should be mad too because the reason why I'm in this state right now,the reason why I have to have three, sometimes four sessions of physical rehab every single day is because of you. Maybe I should hate each and every one of you because I come out here for you guys – it's never for me.”

Had that been the end of Omega's prompt, it would have been an interesting glimpse into his psyche post-injury. It would show the struggles of having to work in a sport where characters are coded black or white, good or evil, and would have left the audience members wondering about the man behind the compression shirt and shoulder brace. Fortunately – or not, depending on your preference – Omega wasn't done, and he decided to get a little weird with a, shall we say, very Kenny Omega metaphor.

“So what I'm going to do right now is a little strange. I don't get out much, so I became a strange individual. I'm going to compare you fans to a very mischievous cat who pees and poops around the house. Boy, do I get mad when I find it, boy do I get mad because I have to clean it, but heck, how can I hate a little kitty cat?”

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Sidebar: Can someone check on Jim Cornette? I think you can hear him screaming all the way from Kentucky in the fancam.

After a brief moment to compose his thoughts, Omega took to the microphone once more and delivered onto fans his closing thoughts.

“So on TV, I may blame you guys, I may hold resentment towards you guys, but perhaps deep down inside, unless this gets aired, I do very much appreciate you”

As the AEW crowd cheered on, Omega handed the mic back to Matt Jackson, and his night, as they say, was done. He came out of the babyface tunnel to ruckus cheers from the assembled crowd, worked a match covered in protective equipment, and then cut a promo about kittens, and being strange. He also took a few moments to acknowledge that while he may not have full creative control behind his character and may ultimately find himself booked as a resentful heel who takes his anger out on the fans, Tyson Smith, the man behind the finger guns and Final Fantasy references is happy to be back where he belongs – wrestling in an AEW ring before wishing fans “goodbye and goodnight, bang!”

Update: AEW posted Omega's full speech on their YouTube channel, check it out below.