Kenny Omega Fears Young Wrestlers Beating Themselves Up At An Accelerated Rate
Kenny Omega has never been one to hold back in a match, putting on hard-hitting and high risk classics with a variety of opponents.
With age and a major health scare, Omega now reflects on going all out in his younger years and how he worries for the current generation.
“With current day AEW, I do think we have been a little more grounded with the professional wrestling aspect of what we do on our shows. That’s not saying we’re better or we’re worse, that’s just how we’ve found our identity. Of course, we use special guests. We’ve used Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Tyson, Snoop Dogg, Costco Guys. You’ll always have that in professional wrestling. It’s a performance, especially on big shows. It happens and it’s natural,” Omega said on Wrestling Observer Radio.
He continued, “For us, this is where it can become a double-edged sword. You may have, on any particular Wednesday night, or Collision, a card where you look at from top to bottom and you go, ‘Jesus, this is a free pay-per-view, what are you guys doing? You haven’t hyped any of these matches, they just released online one day, and we’re going to get these matches. This is insane.’ The double-edged sword behind that is, you go out there and kill it in those matches, and then you have to get to a pay-per-view where the expectation is, ‘Your regular level Wednesday is this level of match, now this is a PPV, you better one-up yourselves.’
“It almost becomes like you’re chasing the dragon and you don’t want to get to a level where things become too physically demanding, too dangerous, too self-harm inflicting where now you have younger guys, and I’ve been there, ‘Hey, I can take the schedule and still ramp it up.’ You feel that way until you can’t. My worry is that we’re going to have these young guys with incedibly bright futures who are beating themselves up at an accelrated rate so that when it comes time to place faith in a particular athelte or performer, and by that I mean put the belt on them, can they hold that belt in a healthy state for the long-term? That’s my fear. I see the writing on the wall for me. I already know where I’m headed and the pace I need to travel at and perform at. I know I’m not invincible. I’ve had the injury and health scares. I know I have to be careful and pick and choose my moments. You can’t tell a young person, ‘This is going to happen down the road. Trust me.’ Everyone knows it, because I was one of them too, ‘Speak for yourself. I’m fine.’ It’s just how it is.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Omega gave his thoughts on the current state of wrestling and where it could be headed. You can find his comments here.
Omega is set to face Kazuchika Okada for the AEW Unified Championship at AEW All In.
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