Kenny Omega is one of All Elite Wrestling‘s top stars, half of AEW’s highest-profile upcoming match with Jon Moxley at All Out, and an Executive Vice President of the company. Basically, he’s a very busy person, and he talked to Gamespot in-depth about all of his duties at AEW.
One of the highlights of the interview is Omega’s take on post-WWE Moxley, who he also said would need to step up his wrestling game in order to prove himself in Omega’s world:
It’s crazy because I remember seeing him on TV. I saw something there. I knew that there was something magnetic about him, something special about him. WWE never showed it. And then when I see him nowadays, when I see these backstage promos, when I see the stuff that he’s done in Japan, when I see the stuff that he’s doing around the world, I see this new enthusiasm. I see the spark. I even see the physical condition that he’s in. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. This is not the Moxley that came from that other place. This is a Jon Moxley that’s reborn. I have to assume that this is a new entity, that this is a new person, and he has a type of enthusiasm and that sort of never-say-die attitude. And, with the skillset that he has, that magnetic charisma, with that ability to sell a match with this promo skills, with that ability to be incredibly physical, he’s kind of like a new-age Terry Funk. You know what I mean? He brings something very new to the table that people clearly enjoy.
Omega also gave his take on how Double or Nothing turned out from his perspective as both a company executive and a wrestler.
I mean, you really have to take a look at the good and the bad, the positives and negatives, and you have to be very constructively critical about your own performance. Now that we’re essentially running the show, we have to be critical about what we can improve moving forward. So for me, I’m a real tough critic of myself. And, so, I unfortunately always look at what can we improve moving forward. So, for me, some production issues. We can clean up some of the camera work. Some of the audio issues. I didn’t like that I could barely hear my theme music. You know what I mean?
But these are things that are such an easy fix. The things that we got right, were actually the hardest things on the show to get it right. We gave a full show, from start to finish, that looked completely different from start to finish. No one match appeared similar to one another. And especially the last three, four matches, they were all so visually different from one another.
The Cleaner also talked about what he does besides wrestle at AEW and what the company is working to improve on before their TV show starts this fall.
So what people don’t understand is that a lot of us, actually, that came from New Japan, that came from Ring Of Honor, we assumed a lot of responsibility there as well. I was kind of the driving force behind a lot of my storylines, behind a lot of my creative ideas. It’s the stuff that you don’t really see. I mean the tech stuff. Some of the set design. Those are things that are new to me, and even agenting matches or working on foreign visas, things like that, these are all things that are very new in my world, and these are the things that keep me awake at night…
And then, you know for me, kind of being the sole Japanese liaison right now, not only am I having to do that during the day, during normal North American hours, I have to be awake for the Japanese time zone. And I have to work with our ladies and men up there to get their visas sorted out, to make sure that they’re feeling comfortable, make sure their flights and their travel’s squared up, hotels, et cetera, et cetera.
So it’s very mentally draining, and I’ve been very under-rested. And then on top of that, when you strip all that away, I was in the first main event, so I got to still worry about my own performance. It’s really tough, and I think when you burn the candle on both ends, eventually it’s going to start to show. My big worry was not that, “Can I do it or can I not do it?” Of course I can. But for how long? Because everyone has their limit. So, right now, we are understaffed. But every week that goes by, we’re finding new talented people… So, as time goes by, we’re getting help from the usual suspects but also unusual sources as well. And moving forward, before we hit TV, I think we’ll have our core crew assembled, and we’ll be ready to just hit it home.
The whole interview is definitely worth reading and includes this and more eye-opening information about how AEW is operating right now and Omega’s role in the company.
