This is a new thing I'm trying where once a week I write a summary and my opinions of a random wrestler: This weeks column is on one of the top stars in New Japan Pro Wrestling "The Cleaner" Kenny Omega.
Summary: Kenny Omega was born Kennny Smith on October 16, 1983 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As a child he played Ice hockey and dreamed of playing professionally... That all changed when a friend of his introduced him to Bobby Jay, the head trainer at the Top Rope Championship Wrestling school and he decided to start training as a pro wrestler.
He trained with Bobby Jay for a year and made his pro debut as Kenny Omega in 1999 at age 16. He originally had a gimmick of a Hawaiian surfer but was pretty quickly dropped and replaced by an Otaku gamer gimmick.
In 2005 Kenny Omega signed a developmental contract with WWE and was assigned to there Deep South Wrestling developmental territory in Georgia. Omega spent about 10 months in DSW before deciding he did not enjoy his time there and requested his release in order to return to the Indies.
It was around this time that Kenny Omega had become a fan of Japanese Wrestling promotion Dramatic Dream Team, particularly the DDT wrestler Kota Ibushi, He made videos of himself challenging Ibushi and sent them to DDT. He was invited to Japan to work for them and wrestle Ibushi, his first tour of Japan with DDT started August 2008. From there Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi would become both great rivals and later tag team partners as "The Golden Lovers" where they would go on to hold gold in both DDT and New Japan Pro Wrestling over the next 6 years.
In 2014 Kenny Omega got his first major chance to break out in Japan as a singles star when he was made the Junior Heavyweight representative of The Bullet Club in NJPW. He immediately developed a new persona as "The Cleaner", saying he was going to clean up the crappy wrestlers in NJPW and beat then IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Ryusuke Taguchi at the Tokyo Dome. After a year in the Junior Heavyweight division he replaced AJ Styles as the new leader of the Bullet Club where he quickly won the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from Hiroshi Tanahashi. From there he would mainly feud over the title with fellow Canadian Michael Elgin until he lost it in June 2016 in the first ever Ladder Match in NJPW history. After losing the IWGP Intercontinental title Kenny Omega quickly rebounded by becoming the first Canadian to win the annual G1 Climax to earn a shot at the IWGP Title in the main event at the Tokyo Dome on January 4th defeating Hirooki Goto in the finals with his finisher the One Winged Angel.
While Kenny lost the match at the Tokyo Dome with Kazuchika Okada it was an instant classic and has been called by many the greatest match of all time. They'd have a rematch 6 months later that ended in a 60 minute draw that got much of the same praise as the January 4th match got. One week later Kenny regrouped after being unable to beat Okada twice by becoming the first ever IWGP US Champion on NJPW's first set of shows in America winning a tournament by last eliminating Tomohiro Ishii. Kenny went on to successfully defend the US Title against Juice Robinson, Yoshi-Hashi and Barretta before being challenged to an international dream match by Chris Jericho, set to take place on January 4 2018 at the Tokyo Dome in what has been called another instant classic that Kenny had won to successfully defend his US Title for the 4th time.
Kenny then lost the US Title to "Switchblade" Jay White a month later and is currently feuding over the role of leader of the Bullet Club with Cody Rhodes while simultaneously reforming his old tag team The Golden Lovers with Kota Ibushi. And that is the career of Kenny Omega up to this point
My opinions: The first time I ever saw Kenny Omega was on an ROH Best Of Davey Richards DVD and I was a fan almost immediately of his. After seeing that I started seeking out more of his work online which is where I found his stuff in Japan. I have never been a big fan of comedy wrestling so I was not a fan of his comical things he'd do but I still thought he was an amazing wrestler when he was serious. But even then I didn't know how great he'd become until he was officially made a Heavyweight in NJPW and had some of the best matches I've seen in the past few years. Whether it be with Kazuchika Okada, Michael Elgin, Chris Jericho, Tomohiro Ishii, Tetsuya Naito, Juice Robinson, Barretta and many other Kenny Omega has had Match Of The Year Candidate after Match Of The Year Candidate over the past few years and he is someone who has definitely earned the right to say he's the best in the world
