AEW: Everything you need to know about Kenny Omega

Before AEW makes its televised debut this Wednesday on TNT, let’s introduce some of our readers to one of the figureheads and founders of All Elite Wrestling: Kenny Omega.

If you ask the average hardcore wrestling fan, the type of fan who indulges any and all kinds of wrestling any and everywhere they can find it, they may cite Kenny Omega as the greatest wrestler on the planet. But to the average person who only views the most accessible bits of wrestling (i.e. WWE), they have no idea who this AEW exec is.

More importantly, the more casual fan may not understand what’s so special about the in-ring veteran. Allow us to educate you. Granted, this article may drag longer than you’d care to read if we gave an entire comprehensive history of Kenny Omega’s entire nearly 20 year history in wrestling, so I am going to try and offer a condensed summary strictly looking at the bullet points that you absolutely, well, need to know as it may pertain to AEW TV.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Growing up in Transcona, Winnipeg, Manitoba as a young ice hockey goalie (because of course ice hockey is a thing that every Canadian is expected to do to prove their Canadianness, which is totally a word), Kenny was in love with professional wrestling. His favorite show was Saturday Night’s Main Event and he adored watching The Ultimate Warrior, his favorite wrestler.

Even as a teenager, he maintained his love for wrestling, but the thought of becoming a wrestler never struck his mind until he learned a friend and fellow student at Transcona Collegiate Institute had started training at Top Rope Championship Wrestling. It was then that Kenny knew that he had to take his own shot.

At 15-years old, he started working and training under Top Rope promoter, Bobby Jay, and made his in-ring debut in February 2000 after a year of training. It was during his time with Top Rope that he first crafted the Kenny Omega character. Granted, at this stage, Omega was a surfer dude, but as he perfected his in-ring craft, he slowly modeled his character closer to who we know him as today: an eccentric gamer dude straight out of Street Fighter.

With this character, Omega’s typical bravado on the mic ranges from either being compellingly articulate and visibly thoughtful with each word that he utters, or as ridiculously over the top as you’d expect out of an anime villain come to life.

Over the course of about a decade, Omega hopped around from promotion to promotion, including a brief stint in WWE, which he left following a year after dealing with some abusive trainers. He made his presence known in places like ROH, PWG, and most notably DDT Pro where he formed a special relationship on and off screen with Kota Ibushi as The Golden Lovers.

Eventually, he’d sign with NJPW in 2014 where he’d join not only their Junior Heavyweight division, but also the Bullet Club (the hottest wrestling stable in the world at the time) as their “Cleaner.” After a stint with the Junior Heavyweight Championship, Kenny Omega replaced AJ Styles as the leader of the Bullet Club when the latter jumped ship for WWE.

With the new responsibility, Omega was promoted to the Heavyweight division. There, he won the Intercontinental and inaugural United States Championships, but it was in his quest for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in a series of matches vs. Kazuchika Okada that Omega started being viewed as one of the best wrestlers on the planet.

Each match in their series was instantly regarded as one of the best matches in wrestling history; each match managing to surpass the last. It was their final one-on-one match together (a No Time Limit Two out of Three Falls Match at Dominion 2018) that Kenny Omega finally captured the World Championship.

While he found much success in NJPW in the Bullet Club, Omega’s greatest benefit to leading that stable was the relationships he made with other members of the BC. Specifically guys like Cody, Hangman Page, and especially The Young Bucks, who he formed a subsidiary group with within the Bullet Club called The Elite. It was in building these relationships that would lead to each man coming together to form AEW.

As the story goes, it was in 2017 that long tenured professional wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer tweeted that he couldn’t imagine Ring of Honor selling out an arena with 10,000 attendees. This inspired Cody and The Young Bucks (with Kenny Omega on the card) to self-finance their own Pay-Per-View card, All In. Held on Sept. 1, 2018, they packed a house of 11,263, officially holding the record for the holding the largest attendance for a wrestling show that wasn’t produced by WWE or WCW.

The success of that show inspired Kenny Omega, Cody, and The Young Bucks to all produce their own wrestling promotion as Executive Vice Presidents. That promotion is All Elite Wrestling.

Omega’s history onscreen for AEW has been less than stellar so far. While he main evented the first ever AEW PPV, Double or Nothing, he lost to Chris Jericho in a match to determine who’d compete for the inaugural AEW World Championship, a title that Jericho went on to win. Then, after the match, Omega was beaten down by a debuting Jon Moxley fresh from his WWE exit.

Since then, Omega has struggled to pick up significant victories in AEW. Most recently, at their last PPV, All Out, Omega lost to PAC – a last minute replacement for Moxley – via ref stoppage. AEW’s companion piece series Being the Elite has highlighted Omega suffering a sort of mental downward spiral as he continues to act erratically and take shots at NXT Superstars like Donovan Dijak.

Are we seeing the breaking point of the Kenny Omega character? We’ll have to wait and see on AEW: Dynamite this coming Wednesday on TNT at 8 o’clock sharp.