Kenny Omega Talks His Ring Attire At Wrestle Kingdom, Reaction When Pitched Chris Jericho Match
Kenny Omega recently appeared on the Talk Is Jericho podcast to talk with Chris Jericho about their match at Wrestle Kingdom 12 earlier this month. Omega revealed that it was Don Callis who suggested that he should try and get the match with Jericho.
Omega said he was hoping to do something special at the Tokyo Dome this year, but he didn't have any ideas. Callis approached him with the proposition of going against Jericho, but Omega was understandably skeptical and was hesitant to reach out to Jericho.
"My reaction was a lot different than yours. He asked me what I thought about [Chris] Jericho and me at the Dome. At the time I was really desperate for something to do at the Dome and really wanted to make an impact," Omega said. "I said to him, 'Come on, please don't dangle a carrot in front of me. I really would need this type of match so please don't throw fantasy matches in front of me when I don't have anything right now.' I said that of course the match would be great but why would you bring that up? He said, 'No, I think he would want to do it,' and at the time I had no idea what your [Jericho] situation was and whether you would be interested, but if it was a possibility I would definitely want to do it. It was during the time I had done your podcast, so I had your information, but I was really afraid to contact you with the idea and didn't want to offend you about the idea; there's a process to these things. I know there is a business side to this, and even if you wanted to do it it's just not that easy so I said that if you wanted to do it I would do everything I could to make it happen. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I was also afraid to contact you as well because I didn't want to look like a jacka**."
Omega held off on contacting Jericho, but Callis was adamant in his belief that Jericho would be open to the match. Omega finally mustered up the confidence to make it happen, and the rest is history. He made it clear to Jericho that NJPW is a great company to work with for special situations like this.
"Don contacted me and asked whether or not I had contacted Jericho. I said to him that I didn't and was wondering if Jericho was really serious about the match, and he responded that he was," Omega said. "I said, okay, let's do this then. I had finally contacted you and said to make this happen. I don't know what you need to make this happen, and whatever you need, you deserve it, let's make it happen. New Japan is weird sometimes with how they organize their business meetings but they were really cool about it."
One of the highlights from Omega's showdown with Jericho came before the match even started. Omega's elaborate entrance attire was eye-popping and sent fans into a frenzy before the bell rang. Omega explained his entrance gear, saying he wants to transition away from his "Cleaner" gimmick and establish himself as the "God of Pro-Wrestling."
"Lately I have been doing the 'God of Pro-Wrestling' thing, and changing my statement. I don't want to be the Cleaner anymore; I kind of want to ease into this 'change the world' thing. I had this idea where we have paid extras on the stage, kind of like an Egyptian garb. My idea was heavily influenced from the 1990's X-Men cartoon with Apocalypse where Apocalypse was the strongest mutant, and people looked at him as a god even though he wasn't, he was a super strong mutant, so that was why I wanted to go with the bluish colors," Omega said. "I'm a Stargate fan, so I came up with this Cyber Anubis mask with a raygun, and while people are doing their daily tasks on the video screens there are pyramids in the background and I appear and everyone is praying to the god of Wrestling. It's like century overload imagery with all of my best matches over the years and everyone stops what they are doing at the crosswalk and worshiping the God of Wrestling. It's a huge ego trip thing, it was just ridiculous but I thought it felt for our thing because I was starting to get sympathy as a babyface, but at the same time I wanted that chip on my shoulder where I was like, yes, have sympathy for me because I am your God, because I didn't want to go full babyface yet, and I did have clearance too, so I thought it would be really cool to go with the get up that I made. I had that meeting with everyone and they all thought it was a cool idea."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Talk Is Jericho
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.