Kenny Omega is one of the biggest stars in the world and he’s standing up for foreign talent.
Lots of talent, especially from Japan, come over to AEW and the states for appearances and shows, and they don’t speak English. Sadly, some online fans harass them and talk down on the foreign talent, bashing them on social media. Recently, Kenny Omega spoke on Twitch with CEOGaming about how many foreign talent don’t expect harsh, inhuman criticism when they come to the United States. He says that they should understand the kind of criticism they get is usually motivated by something extremely trivial.
A lot of our international talent, they came to this country not really expecting everyone to be as relentless and ruthless, and have a shred of humanity. It’s unfortunate that that’s not the case, it’s not the world that they came into. You know, it catches them off guard and it surprises them to feel so hated so suddenly, and they need to understand that, that doesn’t represent everyone’s feelings, that people literally have nothing else better to do than to go out of their way and create an account to tell them that, ‘this, that, or the other’, something negative anyway, probably not just about wrestling, probably about the way that they look, or the way that they sound, or not being able to speak English — all of that. It’s really sad.
– Kenny Omega via Twitch
Kenny specifically touched on Joshi stars like Hikaru Shida, Riho, Maki Itoh & Yuka Sakazaki getting lots of criticism online.
… Cases with Shida, Maki Itoh, Riho, [Yuka] Sakazaki, when I hear about what some of these pathetic motherf*ckers would say because they think somebody else that has a podcast or platform to say something negative, they think that makes it okay … The Joshi wrestlers are so much more refined. They train seven days a f*cking week and are so much more smooth and professional, and we have never once had any sort of backstage political issue with Joshi wrestlers. They do whatever they can, whatever is asked for them.
– Kenny Omega via Twitch
Many Japanese talent work very hard, just like everyone else to be the best at their craft. Bashing talent online, especially for where they come from or how they speak is uncalled for.
H/T RingsideNews
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