Kenny Omega Talks About Time in WWE Developmental, Feeling ‘Sabotaged’

Throughout 2017, there has been no bigger name outside of WWE than Kenny Omega.

Following an off the charts match with Kazuchika Okada at WrestleKingdom on January 4 (New Japan’s WrestleMania), some believed a move to WWE was imminent for “The Cleaner.” After AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows had a mass migration from New Japan Pro Wrestling to WWE in 2016, it seemed like a move by Omega could be 2017’s big surprise.

Instead, Omega decided to renew his deal with New Japan and stay for the rest of the year. Rumors are that current contract will end in early 2018, and some wonder whether Omega will make the jump to WWE at that point. Given how hard of a play WWE makes for the Canadian superstar, it could be inevitable.

That being said, Omega has been signed with WWE before. He worked in the WWE developmental system from 2005-2006 as part of the old Deep South Wrestling territory. Omega spoke about his time there on a recent edition of the Edge and Christian podcast.

“I felt like any attempt to show my personality was sabotaged in a way a little bit. I would have a move, for example, and then, I’d have somebody tell me exactly why it makes no sense, but really, nothing makes sense. It’s so easy to [say that a pro wrestling move makes no sense], so I was kind of mindf–ked a little bit and I started to, not lose confidence in myself, but just kind of lose confidence in the system,” Omega explained.

Further explaining his frustration in developmental, Omega addressed ideas that he had where he received no feedback from those in charge whatsoever.

“I wrote some stuff out and I didn’t hear anything back. They didn’t even go, ‘that sucked’ or ‘it was okay’. I heard just nothing and at that point I thought, ‘wow, there really is no light at the end of this tunnel and I really don’t want to be this guy that is miserable sitting on the sidelines wishing he could contribute more.’ And so I thought I still have this faith deep in myself. I do believe there’s something more I can do. So I just wanted to show WWE that I could be someone that could make wrestling a lot of money and be a major player as myself. And I understand at that point in time the broken down 170 lbs. Kenny Omega was worthless, so what I wanted to do was build myself back up from the bottom again, actually refind that confidence that I once had, go back to the drawing board and come up with something to make me me, and head back at it,” Omega said.

Omega also spoke about how wrestling in Japan was always one of his goals, even when he was with WWE, and it was a goal that his mind always came back to.

Further questioning his time and lack of success with WWE developmental, Omega wonders if it was because he wasn’t as interested in the business end of it at this time. Years later, after making a lot of money for himself on the business end, one has to wonder if his mind has changed.

Steve Austin recently said that Kenny Omega is a guy that WWE could bring in and immediately make the face of the promotion if they put all of their energy behind him and let him be himself. Will that happen in 2018? Triple H has commented that he is interested in bringing Omega to WWE, and It would certainly be a dream scenario for wrestling fans. Whether or not Omega will want to leave his dream job in Japan remains to be seen.

[H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription]