“The Cleaner” Kenny Omega is recognized as one of, if not the greatest pro wrestler in the modern era and possibly even of all time. He has won championship gold in every promotion he has competed in and he was even one of the first signees in AEW as well as one of the most dominant World Champion in the history of All Elite Wrestling. Kenny Omega last competed for AEW at last November’s Full Gear Event, when he lost the AEW World Title to “Hangman” Adam Page and he has since been out of action as he has had injuries that needed to be surgically repaired and he needed to divert his attention on rehabbing those nagging injuries.
Omega recently had a conversation with Fightful on what led to him finally deciding to take time away from AEW to rehab and to recover from his nagging injuries.
This is what Kenny Omega said:
“I think as time passes by and you start to bury things, you try your best to ignore the things that poke and prod at you. You try to ignore the things that are nagging injuries. You try to ignore the things that don’t seem as important as the task at hand.” “So when I knew that I had a title match, or if I knew that I had some kind of important match where I knew I could possibly elevate somebody, or even if it was just I know that I’ve got a real fun segment coming up with The Elite or with The Bucks, whatever it was that I was dealing with, I would kind of push into the sub-cortex of my brain and be like, okay, now what do we have left to work with and how can I use what I’ve got left to do this without people knowing that there’s an injury? I think you can really only accomplish this by having years in the business or years in competitive sports or performance. You always find ways to deal with issues like that. You always find ways to lean into other strengths. You may have to cover for weaknesses. That’s just the name of the game.”
“It wasn’t until I was kind of forced to sit and talk about all of these issues that I had, whether it be with our trainers or doctors. When I had done a chiropractic video for a dude on YouTube, it kind of took me aback and it shocked me to start talking about these things that I had never really talked about at all. When I started to compile a list as to what is hurting, but not just hurting, but I mean, what is it that isn’t going to heal on its own, the list was just too long. I knew that as soon as I got to a position where I knew that the company was going to be okay, and I knew that I wasn’t going to leave anybody hanging, or devalue a belt or something, that I needed to take that time to finally get things straightened out.”
You can check out “The Cleaner” Kenny Omega’s comments in the video below. H/T to WrestlingNews.co for transcribing the quotes.
