Kenny Omega's Biggest Heat With Wrestling Personalities

AEW's Kenny Omega may not be entering the twilight of his career, but his limited schedule in 2025 and brutal injury history since losing the AEW World Championship in 2021 makes it clear that he's closer to the end of than the beginning. But regardless of how much time Omega has left, it's been a hell of a ride. Alongside long-time friends the Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, and Tony Khan, Omega helped spearhead AEW back in 2019, creating a wrestling world where there were two viable pro wrestling companies for the first time since 2001. Then there's the fact that many consider Omega among the greatest wrestlers of all-time, in addition to feeling his rivalry with Kazuchika Okada produced some of the greatest matches in wrestling history.

And through it all, Omega has largely done it without racking up a laundry list of real life enemies. While Omega has gotten in hot water for situations like booking sex offender Chasyn Rance on a show he produced, or the time he either seriously or jokingly suggested he wouldn't have hired a chunk of the AEW locker room, the actual number of wrestlers he has legit beef with is small. Even Omega's Brawl Out counterpart CM Punk is reported to have little to no ill will towards Omega, despite having huge animosity with the Bucks and "Hangman" Adam Page, three of Omega's closest associates. So when there is a situation where Omega does have heat with another person in wrestling, you know it's pretty serious. So with that in mind, here's a look at three well known wrestling personalities that Omega has held some animosity towards over the years.

Omega's issues with Gail Kim are not as extensive as the other two names Omega's had serious problems with; in fact, up until recently, it seemed like Omega and Kim had very little to do with each other. That changed after Kim spent a week becoming the main character of wrestling social media, which began with her criticizing a death match spot and then segued into her making comments about former AEW Women's World Champion Riho. While Kim's critiques about Riho not being credible due to her size and wrestling attire raised the ire of many wrestling fans, it seemed to really strike a nerve with Omega, a long-time friend and tag team partner of Riho's who has long been protective of her and other AEW joshi wrestlers who have received criticism and hateful remarks.

This led to September 24, when Omega took to X in the morning and tweeted "Another day and another "legend" doing the splits on it for the yearly TKO gift basket..." While Omega never mentioned Kim by name, many took his tweet to be a response towards Kim's comments, including Kim herself. Unsurprisingly, Kim was not a fan of Omega's tweet, referring to it as "derogatory," and has since implied the tweet led to her receiving abuse from fans online. Though the situation has since died down and neither Omega and Kim have commented much since, it's pretty clear that the two Canadian wrestling icons won't be breaking bread with each other any time soon.

A strong argument could be made that Jim Cornette is Omega's ultimate nemesis, even more so than Okada, Jon Moxley, Tetsuya Naito, or any other legendary opponent Omega has met in the ring. For years now, Cornette and Omega have been at each other's throats, their feud dating to when Cornette was booking Ring of Honor. Both Omega and Cornette agree that their beef began over Omega being booked by Cornette for an ROH show that Omega ultimately didn't wrestle on. Cornette has claimed Omega intentionally no-showed the booking; Omega meanwhile has said he couldn't work the show due to injuring his leg. Whatever the case, the hostility has remained since then, and in some ways has only grown.

The situation may have been one thing if Cornette had stuck to his general criticism that Omega couldn't be taken seriously in wrestling due to his style, and his past comedy matches in DDT where he wrestled a doll and a young girl. But the attacks have also become personal, particularly when Cornette has lobbied his own criticisms of Riho that have included statements that could be best categorized as inappropriate. Omega meanwhile has largely tried to avoid talking about Cornette, but at times has been unable to control his anger towards the wrestling personality. One notable instance came during a Twitch stream in 2022, when Omega discussed the animosity between him and Cornette, stating that he felt Cornette had backed himself into a corner with "hateful speech," alluding not just to Cornette's remarks towards him, but other controversial statements Cornette had made. Even as the heat has taken a backseat to other stories in recent years, there's little sign that the animosity between Cornette and Omega has dulled.

Omega's feud with Cornette may be the first thing fans think of when they think of "Kenny Omega's real life enemies." But over the past few years, Rossy Ogawa, the former booker for World Wonder Ring Stardom turned promoter for Dream Star Fighting Marigold, has become a more popular target for Omega. While the issues between the two have appeared to exist for quite awhile, they didn't come into focus until 2024, when Ogawa left Stardom. While this officially revealed Ogawa's plans to recreate Marigold and steal as many Stardom talents for it as possible, it also opened the floodgates in other regards, such as AEW owner Tony Khan's insinuations that Ogawa had been a hold up in AEW and Stardom working together. But that took a backseat quickly, when Omega, doing Twitch streams from home while recovering from diverticulitis, seemed to imply that there was a darker side to Ogawa that no one knew about.

While Omega seemed reluctant to elaborate on these points, many believed he was referring to Marigold's practice of trying to hire unmarried women between 13 and 30 years old, opening the door past criticism Ogawa had received for such practices in Stardom. Omega also noted that he stood by former tag partner and WWE star Asuka, who in the past had stated that Stardom, under Ogawa, had been "created to defeat me." Upon being asked about Omega's comments, Ogawa accused Omega of "defamation," and stated what he had said was untrue. After a year of no barbs between them, Omega was critical of Ogawa again in May after Ogawa was accused of bodyshaming one of his top stars, Utami Hayashishita. While Omega played coy once again, he reminded fans of his past comments about Ogawa, and stated that the promoter "does a good job of revealing himself to the world on his own, , and soon enough, whether he goes full mask-off on his own...the writing will be on the wall."