For most of this century, WWE has been widely seen as the only game in town for American professional wrestling. For a lot of people, the indies seem like a place to get started in wrestling, and maybe to wind your career down years later, but if all goes according to plan (says the conventional thinking) in between you hope to spend some time in WWE, the only game in town for “mainstream” wrestling, and the best choice for making a living doing it.
So it’s interesting to look at Kenny Omega right now. He’s one of the most famous Wrestlers in the world, and #1 on the most recent PWI 100, but he’s never really worked for WWE (aside from a brief stint in a developmental territory in 2005-06). As we move towards the official debut of All Elite Wrestling on May 25, Omega is clearly exactly where he wants to be, as one of the top guys in that company as well as an Executive Vice President. Recently on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, Kenny was asked if he’s interesting in WWE, and he had this to say (thanks to 411Mania for the transcript):
Right now no. Zero. Absolutely not. I am 100% focused on what we are doing with AEW and my interest starts and ends with just hoping the best for my friends that are there and I hope they do well, I know WrestleMania is coming up and it is a big show for them and I hope everyone kills it. If everyone is doing well than the industry does well and that is about it. Of course and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I just wait for the fantasy world which may or may not happen where we’ll work together someday.
Obviously as he and his friends get their own company off the ground, it would be a weird look for Kenny to talk about wanting to go to WWE someday, but there were rumors they made a really good offer before he officially joined AEW, so he’s probably already put his money where his mouth is.
In the same interview, Omega talks at length about being known for his five-star matches, and he describes putting them together in a pretty artistic way that I think is helpful to understand why people have so much respect for this guy and his work:
It is a lot of pressure and of course it takes two to tango but ironically when I use the word tango I can relate it to and liken it to perhaps ballroom dancing. Where the best dancers in the world can dance in sync with any partners that are professionally trained. Their body responds to every twitch of the muscle fiber and it almost becomes an animalistic response and it becomes reaction and becomes instinct and whether I’ve always had that or not I am not sure but I realized I had this skill in 2016 at the G1 in my first run in the G1. That was perhaps the way I wanted to approach my story telling plus the passion that I had and the pride that I had with my own performances were various components in a gigantic witches brew that allowed me to really evolve myself as a performer and once I made that gigantic evolutionary step I sort of felt that I unlocked the secret to I guess you could call it the five star match.
Without sounding too egotistical, a five star match to me is kind of an easy thing to do with almost anybody. The only time I would falter in my quest to have a five star match was when I really go out of my way to try something absolutely new or something that I am unfamiliar with or 100% comfortable with because I could rehash and recycle the same old formula because I know what works but if I start doing that than I’ll stop growing and I don’t feel that I am finished yet in my process or evolution. So, I am still going to get a little frisky and I am still going to try new things but if someone had a gun to my head and said have a five star match with this guy, it is kind of light work at this point and pretty easy stuff.
Kenny Omega is clearly a man who understands the art of wrestling, and whatever company he’s in, he’ll be worth watching.
