Kenny Omega talks about the unbreakable bond between fans and performers in an interview with Sports Illustrated before AEW Dynamite in Chicago.
“We knew we had to make it special for the fans,” says Omega. “It felt like we left people in limbo, so we had to come back emphatically. Our goal is to make wrestling feel like a rock concert. We wanted people to focus entirely on the match, and whether you were rooting for or against us, we wanted people to enjoy it. As soon as the music hit, we wanted it to be a spectacle. We wanted people to know they were in for a ride. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the performance.”
“There are things no one can talk about, so I’d encourage people to let it go,” says Omega. “It doesn’t change that we want a team effort in AEW. I don’t even mean implicitly myself and my opponent. It also means the referee, the fans, the people who set up the ring, everyone–even a technical error can ruin the memory of a match. I can refer back to the exploding barbed wire death match. So I encourage people to move away from it because there is no information to be released. Though I cannot talk about it, I do want the fans to know I still want the best for pro wrestling.”
“The day after the pay-per-view, I was absolutely devastated by the loss of Jason David Frank,” says Omega, speaking of the actor who died over the weekend. “He’s one of my childhood heroes. That evening, there was a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club where five people died. It’s absolutely terrible. After such tragedy, it puts everything in perspective.
“This isn’t Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks against CM Punk. It is people trying to show off their craft. You can boo Kenny Omega, or the Young Bucks, or CM Punk, but I hope people don’t forget we’re human beings struggling to show our art.”
“I’m finding that I really have to push hard past my limits to create change,” says Omega. “Sometimes that means I push myself too hard. I was able to get myself into better shape in the time away because I had a goal and a vision. But it almost came to a screeching halt when I strained a tendon in my knee because I was pushing too hard.
“The time away wasn’t time to rest. That was time for me to put in the work. It was time to train two or three times a day, increasing the intensity of those sessions. I wanted to come away from the time away with something positive.”
