The main event of New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 event is Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Tetsuya Naito, but the match a lot of people are interested in seeing is a dream match between the IWGP United States Champion Kenny Omega taking on WWE legend Chris Jericho. That match was announced this past weekend when Jericho appeared on the video screen during a NJPW event to challenge Omega to a match.
Earlier this week, we noted that Jericho got the idea for this match with Omega from watching the hype surrounding the Floyd Mayweather/Conor McGregor boxing match from this past August that drew so much attention and made a lot of money.
During a recent edition of the ‘Talk is Jericho’ podcast, Jericho talked about why he wanted to do the match while also praising Omega heavily. Thanks to WrestlingInc for the quotes:
“It’s something that I’ve been working on for a couple of months. I’m very excited about this. It’s the first match that I’ve had outside of the WWE since 1999 and the timing couldn’t be better. I mean, Kenny Omega is the best performer in professional wrestling today, the most critically acclaimed, the most buzz, and I came off the greatest run of my career back in 2016, 2017, so I think you really do have best in the world versus best in the world type of situation.
“But I’ve been saying that I’m the alpha of pro wrestling, by far the greatest of all time, the best in the world, so it is the Alpha versus Omega January 4th at the Tokyo Dome. If you’re not going to be in Japan, you can watch it on New Japan World, which is their live streaming service and we are working on other ways for you to see it as well.”
Jericho also talked about how much attention the match announcement has been getting.
“It [has] definitely caused the whole [pro] wrestling world on its head. It’s the biggest talk of the wrestling world, and, once again, Chris Jericho right in the middle of it. That’s what I do, baby! The last couple of months, I’ve been working on it. Keeping it a secret from all of you was actually so surprised and happy that it ended up staying a secret. Nobody knew until the match was announced at the end of Kenny’s match in Osaka [Japan] the other day, which was in the middle of the night for everybody.
“It’s going to be one of the biggest matches in [pro] wrestling history happening at the Tokyo Dome. It is a co-headlining main event along with [Kazuchika] Okada and [Tetsuya] Naito, so yep, working on top at the Tokyo Dome. The kid’s still [has] got it!”
In case you haven’t seen the video with Jericho doing a promo about his match with Omega, you can watch it below.
