Before he was \u201cThe Cleaner,\u201d before he was \u201cThe Best Bout Machine,\u201d before he was AEW and IWGP World Champion, before he was even Kenny Omega, he was just Tyson Smith, a wrestling fan from Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
The Canadian wrestling icon returns to his hometown on Wednesday night for a live edition of Dynamite at the Canada Life Centre as AEW begins a swing through Western Canada. The tour culminates in Apr. 12\u2019s Dynasty pay-per-view at Vancouver\u2019s Rogers Arena where he will compete against Maxwell Jacob Friedman for the AEW World Championship in the main event.<\/p>\n
You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE on Wednesday night from Winnipeg at 8 p.m. ET\/ 5 p.m. PT on TSN2, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.<\/p>\n
For Omega, Wednesday night is a chance to go back to where his pro wrestling journey began as a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe WWF, at the time, they would probably come to Winnipeg at least once a year for a house show,\u201d Omega told TSN.ca. \u201cThey even did it a couple times when they came to a place called the Red River Ex. It\u2019s like a local fair that comes around once a year, so they would sometimes do outdoor shows for the Red River Ex and I would like to go to those. Of course, being a child, I could never afford tickets for that, so that was always the easiest way to make me the most excited birthday boy was to give me WWF tickets. It would always be my dad, my grandpa and myself and those are always great memories, to go to those live shows with them because they got into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the wrestlers created cherished moments for him on those nights, it\u2019s the 42-year-old Omega who will renew the cycle himself on Wednesday. A new generation of Winnipeg fans might be coming to their first-ever show with Omega taking to the ring to help construct core memories for them. It\u2019s something that\u2019s not lost on Omega.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat blows my mind because I still sort of feel like I\u2019m trying to do well by the people who came before me,\u201d Omega said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to embarrass myself for the sake of the rich heritage and traditions of professional wrestling that we have seen in Winnipeg. So for me now where I\u2019m in this position where people might actually look at my performance and say, \u2018I want to do what this guy does\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019ve already decided do it and I like what he\u2019s doing and I\u2019m going to use this as a reference piece or as study material.\u2019 That part really blows my mind because I\u2019ve yet to see myself in that light. But I do accept the responsibility of it and I think that\u2019s why I take my position within the company very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Omega is still an active competitor at all is a minor miracle in itself. In December of 2023, a bout of diverticulitis stopped his career in its tracks. There was a very real chance that his quality of life could be compromised and, had he not seen doctors when he did, his life itself would have been in jeopardy. After surgeries and a lengthy rehab process, Omega made his return to action in January of 2025. Since then, he\u2019s performed on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
But if you ask him how he physically feels right now, it\u2019s not such a straightforward query.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost a loaded question,\u201d Omega said. \u201cWhat\u2019s crazy is that I got so used to feeling so bad that bad was kind of the normal and that if anything was even encroaching upon something more positive, I felt like, \u2018Wow, boy, do I feel great! I can just take over the world right now. I\u2019m feeling fantastic.\u2019 But that wasn\u2019t really an actual good, good feeling. It was just somewhat better than having to stay overnight in the hospital. A slight absence of that does not necessarily equal great and that I should be in that heavyweight title picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omega was already meticulous with his diet and training, but in returning to the ring, he was forced to become even more dialed into everything he put into his body and the condition in which he kept himself. He credits those around him for assisting in his recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very happy and fortunate that I had a whole support structure around me, whether it be my boss or my physio people, the trainers at AEW, who made sure to always monitor my condition and say, like, \u2018Hey, something\u2019s a little off. Do you feel off in this way?\u2019\u201d Omega said. \u201cAnd if I said yes or no or what have you, we would then tackle it from there. So there was a point in time when I thought, I think I should be getting better as long as I just hunker down and go for it. That was actually the time I needed to take a step back. So being kind of tactful about this, being smart about it and not pushing too far, too soon really helped me to feel the way that I do now, which I do believe is actually light years beyond where I was at before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Widely considered to be one of the finest performers of his era, Omega\u2019s time away from the ring made him contemplate his future. In those 13 months off, he says he thought long and hard about what his comeback might look like, if there was even to be one.<\/p>\n
Knowing that the standard he set for himself \u2013 with classic matches against the likes of Will Ospreay and Tetsuya Naito and his generational rivalry with Kazuchika Okada \u2013 was as lofty as they come, Omega had no interest in returning as a shell of his former self.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be someone who\u2019s hanging out just because he wants a paycheque,\u201d Omega said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to take anybody else\u2019s well-deserved spot, either, by holding on too tightly to that. As we move forward with professional wrestling, and in all sports, the level of athlete gets better and better and better, whether it be naturally or due to advanced training methods or what have you. So I would feel undeserving of a spot if I were holding people like that back because of my condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there\u2019s also so many odd jobs and things that need to be done behind the scenes in AEW that it\u2019s not like I wouldn\u2019t have any value within the company at all. There\u2019s always something to do, but I don\u2019t feel like I need to steal that main-event spot or I need to hold on to it until you pry it from my cold, dead hands, not at all. I would love for the memory of Kenny Omega, in ring, to be one that people can look back with fondness, rather than, \u2018Well, Kenny was pretty good, and then, boy, he just kinda stunk up the joint for years after that.\u2019 I don\u2019t want that to be what comes to people\u2019s minds when they think of my career. So I\u2019d rather just back out with a little bit of honour before that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
That it looks like Omega hasn\u2019t missed a beat since his return will come as no surprise to anybody who\u2019s watched him compete recently. Over the past few months, Omega has performed in well-received matches against Bolton, Ont.\u2019s Josh Alexander and Andrade El Idolo. Last Wednesday night saw an end to a dynamic feud with Swerve Strickland that set up the title match with Friedman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel lucky that I\u2019ve had somewhat of this second lease on my wrestling career in AEW,\u201d Omega said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know if I would be able to step up and do main event-level matches and here we are. I\u2019ve had a number of them recently and I felt like I can handle it. I can handle that workload and, as luck would have it, it coincides with this Canadian tour. It\u2019s great that while I do feel healthy enough to perform and have these matches that people can enjoy live, that I\u2019m able to do it in Canada now, too. So lucky timing, but not for an absence of hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omega now shifts his focus to his program with Friedman, another AEW mainstay, but one with whom he has a very limited history. The two men have wrestled just once in the past, in the fall of 2023. Omega considers the current champion to be one of the finest performers in the world right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax is the blueprint for what a superstar actually is,\u201d Omega said of the 30-year-old Long Islander. \u201cHe loves hearing the sound of his own voice, but it just so happens that when he does speak that, it conveys a large, profound message. He knows what he wants to say, how to say it, and he knows how to get a reaction when he does say it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, Max is already ahead of the game, though he\u2019s so young in the sport. And people could look at his strength being his mouth and his weakness being the wrestling, when in reality the wrestling is almost just as good as how well that he speaks. He\u2019s developed into quite a champion and, unfortunately, champions can sometimes be bad people, so you may not enjoy Max on your TV screen. But champions as bad people sometimes fuel that foil to them, which will be the ultimate good. So hopefully with Max being that insufferable of a human, it will hopefully only result in more cheers for me when I take him down a peg or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omega has held the company\u2019s top title on one previous occasion. He captured the AEW World Championship from Jon Moxley in December of 2020 in a match that served as a heel turn for his character. He would go on to hold the belt for nearly a year before dropping it to Adam Page.<\/p>\n
Along with Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson of The Young Bucks, Omega is one of AEW roster members who are also executive vice-presidents of the company (the now departed Cody Rhodes was the fourth EVP). He insists that his now five-year world title drought was not a conscious decision meant to show people that he didn\u2019t intend to use his real-life position to influence his booking. If anything, Omega says, that wasn\u2019t even a consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that was at all on the forefront of our minds,\u201d Omega said. \u201cI think where all three of us were at, myself and the Bucks \u2013 and if we\u2019re going right back to the beginning, I could even mention Cody\u2019s name to a degree, as well \u2013 was that we really wanted to shine a spotlight on the people who may have not have gotten a chance to be on live television otherwise. So, we\u2019ve seen wonderful stars and people who are being enjoyed and have fanfare all around the world \u2013 people like Orange Cassidy or Toni Storm or even like a Darby Allin. These are people – who knows? \u2013 who may have never gotten a shot with WWE. But I don\u2019t feel like that means that they don\u2019t deserve the superstardom, that they don\u2019t deserve the fanfare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omega says that turning the lens on themselves would have completely defeated what they set out to do with AEW\u2019s inception in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn lieu of us putting ourselves in positions to assume that glory, I think we were all very just focused on [the idea of] let\u2019s find the people who deserve the eyeballs and let\u2019s shine the spotlight on them,\u201d Omega said. \u201cLet\u2019s develop our roster. Let\u2019s set ourselves apart from the pack and let\u2019s have this crew of incredibly talented individuals who no one will question should they be on TV or ask \u2018Why is he or she on my TV?\u2019 We wanted to create this atmosphere, this environment, where when a match comes out on the screen, you know why they\u2019re coming out and that you\u2019re either excited for one person to win or you really want one person to lose. That was always our focus in the beginning because sometimes you don\u2019t know a star until you really get to know them. I think that\u2019s why we tried so hard in the beginning to create people who are now accepted as household names within AEW.\u201d<\/p>\n
If AEW represents the second half of his wrestling legacy, the first half was made in Japan. He developed into a superstar during his two decades in the country, including a nine-year run with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.<\/p>\n
It was in Japan where Omega became inextricably linked with Kota Ibushi, his partner in the Golden Lovers, first teaming together in DDT Pro Wrestling before jumping to NJPW. Now an AEW talent himself, Ibushi is currently sidelined with a severely broken leg incurred in an October match with Alexander.<\/p>\n
A physical specimen whose impressive physique belies his 43 years of age, Ibushi was initially given a two-year recovery time to return to action following his injury. This past February, he required a second procedure on his leg to reattach a screw to the metal plate inserted during his initial surgery. Despite the setback, Omega says Ibushi is raring to return and sees parallels between what he\u2019s going through right now and his own recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI almost feel like I need to be the person who stands in the way of him recovering too fast,\u201d Omega said of Ibushi. \u201cWhen you find yourself behind the 8-ball or [think] that you\u2019re losing time or think maybe people will forget about who I am if I don\u2019t come back right this moment, you push yourself too hard, too soon, even though he has this incredible DNA where an injury that would take someone a year and a half or two years to heal, he can somehow heal that in four or five months. We\u2019ve actually just seen that just now with Ospreay [returning after just a seven-month absence] and his broken neck. The recovery that he\u2019s made in such a short amount of time is nothing short of miraculous.<\/p>\n
But Ibushi is very much cut from the same cloth, where he heals very fast and it just makes him hungrier to want that that spot back. But he does, by the same token, need someone to kind of rein him in a little bit. Regardless of how good you feel, regardless of how quick it\u2019s been, let\u2019s make sure we do this by the book because I want everyone to come back as close to their 100 per cent as they can. There\u2019s no, there\u2019s no need to settle for a 50 or 60 if you can take a little bit more time and get to a 70, 80 or 90, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as Omega is synonymous with the Golden Lovers, he is with the Bullet Club, as well. Formed in 2013 by Fergal \u201cPrince\u201d Devitt (now known as WWE\u2019s Finn Balor), \u201cMachine Gun\u201d Karl Anderson, Simi \u201cBad Luck\u201d Fale and Tama Tonga, the stable became a pop culture juggernaut in both Japan and abroad.<\/p>\n
The familiar black-and-white Bullet Club T-shirt became ubiquitous at wrestling shows all over the world. Serving as NJPW\u2019s top heel faction for years, Bullet Club became the home of many of the company\u2019s top gaijin performers, including the Jacksons, Rhodes, Jay White and A.J. Styles among others. Omega, who joined the faction in 2013, succeeded Styles as the group\u2019s leader, a position he held from 2016 to 2018.<\/p>\n
But all good things must come to an end. This past January at New Japan\u2019s New Year\u2019s Dash show, The Unaffiliated, a stable led by current IWGP World Champion Yota Tsuji that featured the remnants of Los Ingobernables de Japon, merged with Bullet Club War Dogs, the last of the faction\u2019s subgroups still standing, as Unbound Co. The new stable meant Bullet Club was effectively put to bed after nearly 13 years.<\/p>\n
For Omega, Bullet Club represents not only fond memories for himself, but a moment in time for the pro wrestling industry as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it was an enormous opportunity to be surrounded by people who I considered friends, people who I respected, cared about and we were given the ball and a lot of creative leniency and freedom to sort of explore who we wanted to portray, who we wanted the world to see when we went out to perform,\u201d Omega said. \u201cIn Japan, especially, where you have something that is historically very martial arts-based, they just hope that you show fighting spirit. They hope that you show your heart, and they hope that you show that you\u2019re willing to make the physical and mental sacrifices of being the best that you can be. But the Bullet Club allowed for that tiny little bit of North American influence, the Western influence, of showmanship. And as much as I love the Japanese style, especially the Japanese Strong Style of professional wrestling, I never once thought that we needed to abandon the showmanship aspect of professional wrestling completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omega likens the rise of Bullet Club to another phenomenon in Japan that came to prominence towards the end of the 1990s and into the early 21st century.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn mixed martial arts, my favourite promotion of all-time to watch is Pride because you had both a mixture of the greatest athletes and the greatest fighters, but you had some of the greatest personalities, as well,\u201d Omega said. \u201cI think that probably even works is a great comparison too. When Bullet Club was at its peak, when The Elite [Omega\u2019s subgroup with the Jacksons, Rhodes and Page] was at its peak under the Bullet Club umbrella, it really kinda did sorta feel like Pride where you had this force, who wasn\u2019t recognized beforehand as the globally dominant professional wrestling force, but you did have something that sorta became pop culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had wrestlers from other promotions, WWE for example, they would go out and they would watch in their spare time and they would say, \u2018Yeah, what these guys have, they do have something special. They have something worth watching.\u2019 And then you\u2019d see some of the New Japan athletes like the Good Brothers [Anderson and Doc Gallows], Shinsuke Nakamura or A.J. Styles, you\u2019d see this incredible interest generated from WWE to pick those guys up. So it sort of allowed us to rise to a level that maybe we didn\u2019t even see capable of from ourselves. But now looking back at it, like, boy, we really did make a difference, and it\u2019s a cool memory and a very cool feather in our caps.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his legacy well established and no longer in question, what fuels Omega now isn\u2019t further accolades or additional title reigns to tack onto his list of accomplishments. Omega says he\u2019s still around for what comes next \u2013 or more accurately, who comes next. He believes his job now is to help usher in a new generation in AEW.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say much like the early days of AEW, what I had hoped for myself was to aid in the next generation,\u201d Omega said. \u201cSo whoever is to rise above, coming out of me stepping back again, I sort of feel like that\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m active right now. I\u2019m active now as a placeholder for whoever really wants to just grab it and go for it. And in lieu of me, it will be that person. And my hope is that I\u2019m buying enough time for the next megastar in the company to step forward and say, \u2018Hey, look at me. I\u2019ve got something special. What do you guys think?\u2019 And I\u2019m hoping they take that ball and that they run with it. I think that\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m in it right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say that I have any more selfish goals in the company. I mean, I feel like becoming champion would be great because there\u2019s a lot of influence that comes with that and I do want a positive light shined on our company and I do feel like as a representative, I can provide that and it\u2019s a great story too. It\u2019s a fun one, yeah, but ultimately, I do want to make sure that whoever is next, from here on in, that they\u2019re ready to go, and that there\u2019s not this \u2013 I don\u2019t ever want there to be this situation where we have dead air in the company and we don\u2019t have anybody [ready]. And I don\u2019t think we ever will have that, but sometimes you can\u2019t write for that. Sometimes you have to just hope for the best and luck into it. But that\u2019s kinda why my efforts are so concentrated today, it\u2019s that I want to make sure that in the pursuit of me becoming champion again, that there are all these other guys, girls, and everything between, chomping at my heels to want that spotlight, as well. And that when they do get it, that they have something to say, they have something to show, and that the world takes to it just as well, and just as nicely as they\u2019ve taken to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it is finally time for Omega to go, you might not even notice he\u2019s gone. His retirement is unlikely to look like John Cena\u2019s recent yearlong farewell tour that ended this past December or Styles\u2019 high-stakes final match at January\u2019s Royal Rumble. During his recovery from diverticulitis, Omega says he spent a lot of time thinking about how his exit from the business would play out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my retirement will be the kind that happens and you haven\u2019t even realized that it\u2019s happened,\u201d Omega said. \u201cEventually, I\u2019m just going to start showing up less and less and less and before you know it, I\u2019ll be a fleeting thought and someone might go, \u2018Hey, remember that Kenny Omega guy?\u2019 And people might say, \u2018Yeah\u2019 or maybe they\u2019ll say, \u2018No, who was he?\u2019 and I\u2019m fine with that. I\u2019m totally cool with that. I\u2019ve always been a very private person, and it makes me feel awkward and kind of like embarrassed when the spotlight\u2019s on me too much. I know it sounds very odd, but I really do feel that way, especially with retirement, too, because it\u2019s such a finicky subject.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I do think that when I\u2019m gone, I\u2019ll just sort of slowly fade out of it. I never want to say that I\u2019m done, done, done because one of the greatest professional wrestlers to ever do it, Terry Funk, he sorta retired like 14 different times. I don\u2019t want to be that guy\u2026 so I\u2019d rather just not say it, and if I stop showing up, so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he was \u201cThe Cleaner,\u201d before he was \u201cThe Best Bout Machine,\u201d before he was AEW and IWGP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[712,49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-575470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}