A Chronicle of Kenny Omega’s Career in Wrestling and how he has become the most Revolutionary Figure in the Business having never Stepped Foot in WWE as a Main Roster Talent
Rather, Kenny has spent the most notable part of his career thus far in New Japan Pro-Wrestling and has become an executive in AEW. He has also revolutionized the way stories are told in pro wrestling, opting to tell long-term stories.
Twenty-twenty five years ago it was commonplace to orchestrate shocking moments and storylines with the intention of generating a pop in the ratings for that particular week – this was during the Monday Night Wars of The Attitude Era. Starting about 10 years after this, Kenny Omega started patterning his career according to his own vision of what storytelling in wrestling should be. He approached his career from a long-term storytelling perspective, where many different layers and subtle nuances to storylines are hinted at over a period of several years. It is fundamentally a patient man’s game, because there are no immediate payoffs, but the end result is often greater and generates a higher level of investment from fans.
There have been many examples of this long-term approach to storytelling throughout Kenny Omega’s career. A perfect place to start delving into this methodology is by discussing what has transpired in Omega’s AEW career since the inception of the company at the beginning of 2019. Kenny’s tenure in AEW started quietly, but that was merely an example of him adhering to his long-term approach to storytelling, the methodology he has become proficient in.
During the first ever Double Or Nothing Pay-Per-View in May 2019, he delivered a fantastic match in the main event with Chris Jericho before they were both attacked by Jon Moxley. Omega and Moxley were scheduled to be in a match at All Out a few months later, but the match was postponed because Mox contracted a MRSA infection.
The two men met for the first time in AEW at Full Gear in November 2019 in an Unsanctioned Lights Out match which Moxley won (he is a huge proponent of the death match style). This story was put on hold for about a year before Omega won a number one contender’s tournament for the AEW World Championship. Who was the champion at that time? Moxley. Kenny Omega would take the title on December 2, 2020 at Winter Is Coming.
Jon Moxley is currently getting involved in The Cleaner’s storyline with The Elite on a weekly basis so they can build the story for their first Pay-Per-View title match at Revolution at the end of February 2021. Omega has brought The Cleaner persona to AEW after first creating this character in Japan, where the people at NJPW told him that his current character was “too bubbly” for Bullet Club and he needed a little more edge to his heel character.
Omega was able to sandwich an entire eight-month reign with the AEW World Tag Team Championship, with his partner Hangman Adam Page, in that year between his two encounters with Moxley. This run for Omega and Page with the titles was pivotal in the effort by Tony Khan (with influence from EVP’s The Young Bucks) to establish the tag team division within AEW as the best in the world.
Page is currently flirting with the idea of potentially joining The Dark Order (after the passing of their leader into the next life. Rest in peace Brodie), but may eventually find his way back into The Elite, since Kenny and Don Callis are always thinking macro in terms of how to revolutionize the business and fundamentally change the way people think.
Another possibility of someone who may find their way back into The Elite is Cody Rhodes. Cody was originally scheduled to team with The Elite against The Inner Circle in a Blood and Guts match at the end of March 2020 and was even being promoted as a member of The Elite. In June of that year Cody stated on Dynamite, “I guess I am not a member of The Elite anymore.”
Omega has always been looking to innovate and do things no one has ever seen before in the professional wrestling industry. A perfect example of this was his 2011 match in Japan with a nine-year-old girl. This was met with mixed reviews – younger fans of wrestling were more willing to accept the style because they had not as much of a preconception as to what wrestling was. On the contrary, veterans who had worked in the business for many years felt Omega was exposing the business. This goes to show that the way things are perceived in life are completely dependent on the perspective of people, their culture and willingness to accept something new.
Another example from the past of Kenny Omega’s willingness to try any and all forms of long-term storytelling is his tag team partnership with Kota Ibushi as the Golden Lovers in Japan’s DDT Pro Wrestling. They were able to do great things together winning many titles and revolutionized the way people think on many different levels. The Golden Lovers were together as a tag team from 2009 – 2014, disbanding when Kenny Omega left DDT Pro Wrestling,
Omega and Ibushi met later in 2014 after Kenny Omega joined Bullet Club. Kota Ibushi earned the opportunity to challenge Bullet Club leader AJ Styles for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but Kenny would interfere in the match. He visibly hit a crossroads in his mind because his instinct was to do anything necessary to help AJ retain the title. He did not physically attack Ibushi, but one could intuitively determine that he was mulling over whether he had done the right thing, because the distraction Omega provided was enough to cost his former tag team partner the championship. Fate had brought the two men back together for a brief moment – this proved to be just another layer that was added to their story.
They would reunite one final time at New Japan’s The New Beginning in Sapporo in January 2018, four years after the tag team broke up. The moment was reminiscent of the WWF storyline in the 1980s between Macho Man Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth, which also ended with some people in tears because they were so emotionally invested.
Yet another example of Omega employing this long-term approach to storytelling over the years with many different layers, subtle nuances, and hints over a period of years is the way he became the ultimate leader of Bullet Club. When he first came to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, he was constantly being attacked by Prince Devitt (Finn Balor), the litigator of the stable at the time. As Omega integrated himself with the company, he eventually joined Bullet Club and overthrew the leader AJ Styles to become the leader himself in 2016 – nearly 2 years after he initially joined the stable.
In reality, this changing of the guard occurred as a subtle storyline intended to compensate for the fact that AJ Styles was leaving NJPW for WWE in January 2016. Shortly after that a sub-sect of Bullet Club called The Elite was born comprised of Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks. The show on the Internet Being The Elite caught fire and became a way for them to gain a significant amount of exposure across the entire world instead of just Japan.
Omega would also become the first foreign G1 Climax winner in NJPW history in 2016 before his match at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in January 2017 with Kazuchika Okada (which was rated six stars by Dave Meltzer), the first of four incredible matches between Omega and Okada. Omega was named Sports Illustrated‘s Wrestler of the Year in 2017 and Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s top male wrestling on its list of the 500 greatest in the world.