Since making the leap to All Elite Wrestling (a promotion he also helps run), Kenny Omega has been on the losing end of a number of feuds and is currently one-half of the AEW Tag Team Champions. Many fans feel like he's underperformed as part of the company, and most of them wonder where the "Best Bout Machine" from NJPW has gone.
Well, during a recent interview with The Sporting News, Omega responded to those criticisms and it turns out that he has a very different perspective on the matter.
"[Laughs] It's funny because I feel like when people … I could compare it to when your favorite player perhaps gets traded to another team. When your favorite player gets traded to another team, and he's initially not the top scorer or leading in assists or playing the way that he used to play like he did for the home team, your team, it's easy to criticize them and say that you made a big mistake, and that you'll never be the same guy again and that it's all downhill.
"Because I decided to take a different path in my career, because I'm not doing these long, drawn-out 45 [minute] to one-hour matches in singles competition, it doesn't mean that I'm not the same guy. This isn't about tooting my own horn, but it's like I'm now helping run a company that has live television every Wednesday. I'm part of a very successful tag team with "Hangman" Adam Page, a guy that I have a lot of chemistry with. And I'm existing within a division of guys that are amongst the top of all the tag teams on all of the planet and showing that it takes more than just having a good, long singles match to be called the best in the world."
It's hard to fault Omega for trying to better himself as a performer, but wrestling fans are a fickle bunch, and it may not take long for them to lose interest in someone who should arguably be the face of All Elite Wrestling. For now, though, he obviously has a sizeable fanbase.
In the same interview, Omega went on to mention that he's also been busy helping to run the company and experimenting with different types of matches - which is why we've seen him in fewer singles bouts - has become a priority for him.
What are your thoughts on the way Omega has been used in AEW since the promotion launched?
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