The Dichotomy of Kenny Omega

One of All Elite Wrestling’s (AEW) best stories at the moment is between Kenny Omega and his former mentor Don Callis. It shows that there’s more to wrestling than headlocks and suplexes (though there are plenty of those). It is about the dichotomy of Kenny Omega.

For some context, Kenny Omega is also known as The Wrestling God. In an age where all of the top smaller guys got signed by the massive corporation that is WWE, who turned their craft into advertising-friendly content that was a shell of what it was with freedom, Kenny said no. He went to Japan and became the biggest non-WWE signed star in the world. He was instrumental in starting AEW, which is the first major company to rival WWE in years. He’s got over twenty five-star matches, including the highest rated match of all time with a seven-star classic against Kazuchika Okada. His match with Chris Jericho turned the wrestling world on its head, and increased the New Japan Pro Wrestling subscriptions in America by ‘tens of thousands overnight’, and as reported by Dave Meltzer (a man who helped form the basis of modern wrestling journalism), the company still makes around $300,000 a year from what that match did.

Kenny Omega is, without a doubt, one of the top wrestlers of the generation.

He’s best friends with The Elite, a group that has now dwindled down to The Young Bucks Matt & Nick Jackson, and “Hangman” Adam Page. Up until recently, Kenny’s been aligned with the manager Don Callis.

Managers have a special place in wrestling, and top managers have a special place in wrestling history. Don Callis and Paul Heyman will go down as the best managers of the modern day. When I see that either man has an interview out, I listen. They both manage to blur the lines of what’s real and what’s show in order to provide some of the most entertaining wrestling content today. They have a lot of parallels in how they treat the business, and in the stories being told with their clients.

Don Callis hates that Kenny Omega pairs himself with The Elite. They don’t take the craft seriously, and Kenny demeans himself for ‘the good of friendship’. And that is the story between Don and Kenny. There’s some history, since Don Callis knew Kenny’s family and helped him in the early days of his wrestling career, but the history isn’t important.

Recently, there was a three on three match between The Elite (Hangman & The Bucks, also known as “The Hungbucks”) and The Dark Order, a group who has history with Hangman and were angry at him. The match is good and tells a story, but it’s filled with jokes and gags. It’s not serious. Compare that to the historic six-star match between Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door just a week ago, and Don’s frustrations make a lot of sense.

There are two sides to Kenny Omega. There is a side that puts on fantastic matches (which has earned him the nickname “The Best Bout Machine”), a side that draws crowds to see him and which main events the Tokyo Dome and puts on what is reported to be the best match of all time. And there is the side that goofs off and plays video games and cracks jokes with The Elite.

And that’s the story. Friendship or prestige? A better question might be friendship or history. Don Callis is concerned with making history, he’s been vocal about it. I recommend listening to both the Don Callis & Kenny Omega edition of the Talk is Jericho podcast (which happens when they’re aligned) and Callis’s episode with new client, Konosuke Takeshita. In both, he lets it be known what he’s looking for in the people he manages: power. The ability to do great things. Stars. Callus credits Omega with paving the way to All Elite Wrestling, because without his match against Chris Jericho, there is no alternative wrestling program in America, and there isn’t enough interest for a company to actually compete with the WWE. But Kenny Omega made it happen because that’s who he is. Or who he was, according to Callis.

In the episode with Kenny, they talk about pushing the needle of the industry forward for what wrestling can be. And to Don, now Kenny’s lost sight of that. He’s lost sight of himself in exchange for the hedonistic, short-term pleasures The Bucks surround themselves with.

I don’t know where it’ll go from here, and I don’t have many predictions. Don Callis has aligned himself with ‘the next Kenny Omega’ in Will Ospreay, a wrestler almost ten years younger who might be better than Kenny was at that age. The feud between Kenny and Will goes back years, but recently Kenny beat Will when with Callis. When Callis switched sides, Will beat Kenny in the rematch. They’ll likely have a rubber match at All In in Wembley Stadium on August 27th, but no matter who wins, it won’t end the story with Callis and Omega.

Will Don succeed in ‘professionally breaking’ Kenny in order to rebuild him? Or will Kenny win against Callis’s ideology? Even if Kenny does beat Ospreay at All In, is Callis right? Is this version of Kenny, one who chose to go after the Trios Titles with his friends instead of the World Championship (a major downgrade), incapable of being legendary? Are Kenny’s days as a mover and shaker over?