Omega looks back fondly on the days when all he had to do was show up to an arena and plot out his match.
For the first time since New Year Dash 2023, Kenny Omega is going to be appearing for NJPW in Japan. He is scheduled to be at Power Struggle on November 4th.
With that announcement came a rollout of promotional material for Omega which included an interview on New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s YouTube channel. One of the subjects he touched on was being a wrestler and having an office role with AEW.
Omega admitted that he misses the days when he was just a wrestler. He gave praise to Hiroshi Tanahashi for still being active while being President of NJPW. Omega wonders if him trying to balance the wrestler and office roles drove him to the current state that he’s in.
I would never wish it upon anybody else in the world. Trust me (Omega said about being a wrestler & having an office role). I miss those days of rolling up to an arena with just my carry case. My little bag that just had my gear in it and focusing on that match, that one performance, the performance was just about me, and instead, I’m at the arena days before trying to figure out, ‘How are we gonna make this work? How do we make this guy’s entrance work? How do we make sure all of the entrance videos are formatted? How do we make sure that the extras and the talents are fed? How do we make sure that they’re healthy? How do we make sure that we keep them healthy? What do we do if something goes wrong?’ I mean, there’s always — it’s a balancing act of a million things and if you’re not 100 percent confident in your wrestling ability and if you’re not completely dedicated and passionate, not only about the success of what you do out there but the success of the entire company and maybe even the state of professional wrestling, you can’t do it. It’s a terrible undertaking, and as much as The Young Bucks have betrayed me as of recently, I couldn’t have done it without them. It was really a group effort. But, (Hiroshi) Tanahashi now doing it all by himself with the help of a lot of talented group of people here. I understand the burden that it weighs on him and for him to still be an active professional wrestler, for him to still be in any title picture is nothing short of a miracle. It really allowed for me to step back now that I’m resting from a serious illness and I’m thinking, man, was it all of this on the same plate? Is that what drove me to being this way? The answer’s probably yeah. Short answer of that. But I mean, I did it for the state of wrestling and I did it because I wanted to help people, help fans. I just wanted to help unite people all over the world, lovers of professional wrestling. People that have never watched wrestling and maybe could find a love for it and you know, did I sacrifice a bit of my physical and mental health for it? Sure. But yeah, I’m still standing and I think it’s much like Tanahashi, it’s a passion that fuels us.
This past April, Omega dove into AEW Brawl Out 2022 and the fallout from that. He expressed his opinion that he’s a ‘terrible EVP’ and feels he does not deserve that position. To read more, click here.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the original source with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
