With Wrestle Kingdom 11 behind us, the wrestler whose name is on everyone’s lips is indisputably Kenny Omega. Omega’s contract with New Japan is up on January 31, and while that rules out any possibility of him making a surprise appearance at the Royal Rumble, it hasn’t stopped people from talking. And John Cena sending out cheeky Instagram messages alluding to Omega, as he did last year before AJ Styles showed up, certainly isn’t helping matters.
As far as New Japan’s storyline goes, Omega is “taking time off” from Japan following his high-profile loss to Kazuchika Okada. Omega has been very outspoken about his desire to help NJPW become a major force in wrestling globally, rather than risk becoming a cog in WWE’s machine. But if New Japan isn’t interested in making him the face of their company long-term, he certainly has a lot of options to weigh. And would WWE even be interested in him anyway? Haha yes of course, you ding-dong.
In an interview with ESPN UK ahead of the United Kingdom Championship Tournament, Triple H was asked about the company’s interest in signing the hottest potential free agent in all of professional wrestling. As it turns out, the head of NXT is not an idiot.
“As far as a Kenny Omega goes, I’m just interested in talent, period. If somebody is talented as a performer and they wanna come work for the WWE, if they wanna come to the largest platform in the world where they can truly show what they do off on a global basis, then WWE is the choice for them. If they wanna come work for us and they’re very talented, then I’m interested in talking to them, and that’s across the board.
“To me, anytime anybody questions me on a talent — Am I interested in them? — the fact that you’re questioning me on them means that person is probably pretty talented, so, yes, I’m interested.
“I hear a lot of speculation sometimes about ‘This guy has been working for a long time, so they wouldn’t have interest, or they would, or they’re going after football players, or this or that,'” continued Levesque. “I am interested in talent at every level. Somebody with charisma, somebody with the It factor, somebody who’s athletic, who can do what we do, I’m interested in them.”
You heard it here, folks: one of the main proponents of signing talent to WWE wants to sign the most-desired talent to WWE. Glad we could clear that all up. But we’ll still have a few more weeks of speculation to sit through before we find out whether Kenny will get to settle his hash with The New Day in a WWE ring, or if we’ll have to wait at least a couple more years for that.
