Kenny Omega appeared on the latest “The Sessions” podcast with Renee Paquette. You can hear the interview by scrolling down on this page.
Omega on his role as EVP with AEW:
“Our various roles, they do have limits of course. I mean, we don’t do everything. We have more of an infrastructure and we have people that do have roles and jobs within the company, so it’s not like we are as busy as we were in year one. However, there are still things that we have to do all the time.”
Has his relationship with the talent changed because he is an EVP:
“I’m not sure. It would be sad if people are pretending to be nice to me because of it. I hope that’s not the case. The Bucks and I, we always had an open door policy. It’s like, hey, if we can do something for anybody, our door is always open and just come to us with whatever woe that you may have backstage. The last thing I would want to do is kind of create a divide, where it’s like, hey, you guys are over here doing your thing. We’re over here because we’re what, more important? I don’t ever want to feel that way and it’s never been that way. We are just boys in the locker room. We don’t try to exude any sort of aura about us like, hey, we’re a suit in the office. That’s definitely not how we try to present ourselves.”
On the physical problems he fixed while he was our for eight months:
“I had to get both my knees done. I had to get a shoulder done. I had to get my septum fixed, and then I did a stomach hernia, so there’s a lot. So knowing that I had to get all those things done, it felt like they were more minor surgeries, it felt like it, but I ended up being out for about like eight months. But I felt the company was in a fantastic position and I’d felt that the story that I was able to tell with Hangman was one that I was very proud of. I felt that people were behind him. I was happy that we were moving forward in a direction that didn’t necessarily require me. I felt that now is a good time to get this stuff taken care of.”
On the situation with The Elite and CM Punk in the post media scrum after All Out:
“It’s a shame that the general public and a lot of people aren’t ever going to know what went down, and how it could have been prevented, or how it could have ended differently. That’s just sort of how things go. Again, when it’s a big business operation, I don’t think anyone is happy that it happened or is proud that it happened or anything like that. I think across the board, everyone thinks that was a terrible situation that was unnecessary.”
On what he sees the rest of his career looking like:
“Sometimes the first thing that pops into your mind is probably how you really feel. The first thing that came to my mind wasn’t, you know, a venue. It wasn’t a title. It wasn’t some kind of accolade. I feel like whatever it is that I can contribute to wrestling. I want to be able to help people in the next generation realize their potential as quick as possible or quicker than I was able to, if I can help give anyone advice or to help push them into a certain direction that can lead to something good for them career wise down the road. That is where I’d like to see myself. I don’t feel like I have too many goals or aspirations on my own anymore.”
“I feel like, am I wasting my time here? Do I not even deserve my position if I’m not looking for some sort of measure of success for myself, like am I being ungrateful almost? So those thoughts even still fill my head a little bit because I felt that when I was motivated to win the G1, when I was motivated to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, or win the Match of the Year Award, or win Technical Wrestler of the Year Award, or even even throw like a random thing like boy, wouldn’t it be nice if I could somehow win PWI 500? It got to a point where I was just kind of creating goals to achieve just to have something, and I guess as the checklist started to fill up, and I’m so thankful and I feel so fortunate that I was able to, it became so much less about me and became more about, well I’ve got this resume now, I know that I’m breaking down, and I know that there are people that have 10 years on me or 15 years on me. They have all this time to work with and they can much easier, with much less of a struggle, get to where I am today, and maybe I can save them some mental anguish. Maybe I can save them from being away from their family for a couple more years if I can help them a little bit. That’s just sort of the position that I feel that I’m in right now.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Sessions with Renée Paquette with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
