Jim Cornette On Kenny Omega Vs. Kazuchika Okada Match Being Overrated, His Problems With Omega
Recently on The Jim Cornette Experience, professional wrestling veteran Jim Cornette shared his thoughts on Kenny Omega and his IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match challenging Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11.
According to Cornette, he first encountered Omega at Ring Of Honor around 2006. James E. said that 'The Cleaner' reminded him of WWE Hall Of Famer, The Ultimate Warrior.
"Here's the thing about Kenny Omega, everybody knows that listens to the program regularly that I've had problems with him because of his activities in Japan, embarrassing the [professional] wrestling business, exposing it, and et cetera. But with Kenny Omega, I first saw Kenny Omega in Ring Of Honor, in 2006-ish, so, and, everybody was saying, 'oh, this kid is great,' and when I watched him live, he reminded me a lot of The Ultimate Warrior, the head-shaking, the goofy expressions, he had horrible basics. But you could tell the kid was a great athlete, and with experience, who knows what might happen?"
Cornette went on to say that Omega no-showed ROH Final Battle 2009 to work a show in Japan. Apparently, Omega sent Ring Of Honor brass a photograph of a horribly injured ankle and foot to get out of his booking rather than admitting that he had another booking.
"[Omega] left Ring Of Honor and went to Japan. He's Canadian originally, but he went to Japan and he would wrestle there quite a bit. And Adam Pearce, when Adam Pearce was booking Ring Of Honor, booked Kenny Omega for Final Battle, I believe it was 2009. It was Final Battle 2009 in New York. And I was helping Adam at the time and he emailed me one time before the show, 'oh, look at this', he forwarded the email. He said, 'Omega can't show up – he [has] hurt his ankle or foot and he sent this email.' And Omega sent an emailing saying, 'I can't be there at Final Battle. I'm injured.' And he sent a picture of this f–ked up ankle and foot. It looked f–king horrible. It looked like he had gangrene. I don't know what the f–k. And I even, at the time, wrote back, 'is that even his f–king ankle, Adam, because that looks f–king horrible?' And Adam said, 'that's all I've got and he ain't going to be there.' So of course Omega worked in Japan that weekend, so he didn't even have the f–king guts or ability in him to be honest with a guy that had booked him, a company that had booked him early in his career to say, 'I've got a booking in Japan – that's my priority,' which would have been understood. But instead, he lied and sent this bogus f–king picture of somebody else's f–king foot. Where do you get that? I don't even know. And so that's why he didn't show up at Ring Of Honor anymore, because he was written off because he was a lying sack of s–t that no-showed a booking under false pretenses instead of being honest."
Also, Cornette touched on his issue with Omega performing in matches that "expose" the professional wrestling business.
"Then, of course, he had those matches with the blow-up doll and f–king nine year old girl. I'm not even kidding, folks. If you're just listening to The Experience for the first time, the f–king guy had competitive matches in front of ticket-purchasing patrons in Japan with a blow-up doll and a nine year old little girl."
As for the first-ever six-star match, Cornette professed that the match certainly was not even of the caliber of many five-star matches.
"I watched this match and I'm sorry, folks, but there is no way, and shape, and form and if you watch them together and if you're a younger fan, you might not agree with this because you didn't live in the time when pro wrestling matches actually happened. Now you have sports entertainment matches. But there's no way this Kenny Omega and Okada match was anywhere near as good as [Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (March 1981), Tiger Mask vs. The Dynamite Kid (January 1982), Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (1989 trilogy), Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart (March 1997), among others]. I mean, it was a great display of athleticism. I mean, these guys, they took a lot of risks. But it had such obvious cooperation and moves that nobody could really get up from and et cetera, that it doesn't fit in that category.
"As far as I'm concerned, Kenny Omega should do the motion-capture deal for video games that he is so infatuated with, but it wasn't a five-star pro wrestling match much less a six-star pro wrestling match. And I'm sorry! I'm f–king sorry! But it was an exhibition of guys doing moves. I mean, it was wonderful. The first 10 minutes, I was dying. They fought on the floor forever without being counted out and I jotted down some things. They'd do a big move and then they'd lay around forever. They sold so much and everybody said, 'oh, Cornette, you say don't sell at all!' Well, some people don't sell at all and they sold so much. They knew they were going to go long because long equals classic, but they sold so much they were in slo-mo. Omega is a great athlete. He still has the stupid facial expressions. Calm down on The Ultimate Warrior f–king s–t and anything that reminds me of The Ultimate Warrior instantly makes me mad because he was the worst pushed wrestler in a major promotion ever. It was a really good 20-minute match that lasted 45 minutes."
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Source: The Jim Cornette Experience