Kenny Omega has been out of action with several injuries all over his body, including vertigo which he had to deal with during matches.
Now, after months away from the spotlight, Kenny Omega sat down with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful to speak about his vertigo, upcoming Forbidden Door PPV & More.
I first noticed that uh, it was an issue that had turned up in [G1 Semi-Finals].. Block B decision making match to decide who was going to go to the finals and I had taken one of Okada’s drop kicks, sort of, i guess all ties to Forbidden Door in sort of a way, so I’ve taken one of Okada’s drop kicks, from New Japan, who we know we’re working with come this weekend and it was just one of those strange, it happens once every million times, the way that he turns over on the drop kick and the way that I had fell, put me right underneath his knee, so he kind of did like this backflipping knee drop onto my temple and I guess it put something out, put out my C1 in my neck, I thought it was more of a traumatic blow, like blunt force trauma type thing, cause I mean, it’s a big knee drop on my head. But, what I didn’t realize until the day after, in the morning, was that something was out, something was wrong. As soon as I tried to stand up, I fell over, you know how you think you’re gonna walk straight but you just, you’re walking at an angle and I fell into a dresser and knocked over a bunch of stuff that was on the, you know, glass and things, it was rough.
– Kenny Omega on first getting Vertigo
I remember near the beginning, and I remember it like it was yesterday, there’s a part in the match where I take like a, kind of like a jumping neck breaker type thing, and I just stayed lying on my back too long and for a second there I was like “oh no, I just did myself in.” I totally forgot, and this is gonna get rough cause we just started this match, we’re about like 5-7 minutes in, but we were able to get back on track and it worked out alright. But, it was scary and it had been a problem that if my C1 went back out, it would come back. And some times I would have moments where I’d have like a good 8 months, 9 months, but then even just having a bad bus ride or a bad plane ride might put it out. It was just something that I always had to make sure that u had access to someone who knew how to fix it, to have them on hand at all times, cause the last thing I would want to do is feel that way in a ring and to have the responsibility of having my own safety and someone else’s safety in my hands at that point. Definitely didn’t want to do that.
– Kenny Omega on Wrestling with vertigo
It’s probably, arguably, the most important phase in my career and it, to me, I’m able to sit back and kind of watch with a smile on my face because this was sort of always the hopeful, I don’t want to say endgame, but always the hopeful pit stop into what the mission statement for AEW always was, I mean, we always wanted to be, we always wanted just to make wrestling a friendly place for everyone.
– Kenny Omega on the importance of the AEW & NJPW + others relationship(s).
I did, actually. I knew that any sort of bad blood or ill-will that maybe the suits had towards me, I knew that that wasn’t an opinion that was shared by the locker room and I knew eventually, New Japan being, New Japan to get into a position to be as prominent as they were in the wrestling culture and in Japan, that was all because the wrestlers really kinda took control and made it, and made New Japan the wrestling promotion that they wanted themselves to become. So, I knew that once wrestlers took control again, and once it was less of an issue of myself and the current management, that we could get to a point where we were discussing, you know, Forbidden Door or whatever the other possible name could’ve been. So, I was glad that even though I left under a cloud, that we were able to bring things back to wrestlers talking productively with other wrestlers that wanted to do something really cool and change the landscape of wrestling and of course, you know, there has been a management shift since I had left and they were very much in line with that same vision, so, if anything, the most surprising thing was that it took so long. I thought it would take a year or two and it took close to three, four. No big deal, here we are, all is well.
– Kenny Omega on if he originally thought AEW & NJPW would work together.
Kenny Omega goes on to talk about his mentality the last few years, always wanting to be a hand with New Japan, Will Ospreay, The Fight Forever Video Game & more. You can see the full interview here.
H/T Fightful Select.
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