wrestling / News

Kenny Omega Doesn’t Mind People Taking His Moves, Comments on Shibata’s Injury

May 7, 2017 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Kenny Omega NJPW.png

– Kenny Omega spoke with Sportskeeda for a new interview. Some highlights are below:

On Big Damo using the One-Winged Angel and Seth Rollins using the Rain Trigger: “I’m cool with it. Examining their execution, it hardly appears like the same move anyway. Now in 2017, almost every move has been created. To make something ‘new’, sometimes the only way is to add your own spin to a pre-existing move. I have a fairly original move set, but I do have a dragon suplex in my arsenal. I make that look fresh by adding a snap and keeping it low to the ground. It looks original, but at the end of the day, it is just a dragon suplex.”

On Hulk Hogan expressing desire to join Bullet Club and whether that could happen: “No comment.”

On headbutts in wrestling, considering Katsuyori Shibata’s injury: “People need to understand the nature of what we do and the lifestyles that we live. There’s this strange assumption that in between our big shows we’re resting comfortably and entering every big match situation at 100%. The truth is that we’re working every day, and our ‘off’ days are only absent of matches because the travel between destinations is too long. One headbutt didn’t instantaneously end the career of a healthy, super athlete. I have no doubt that it contributed, (and is a move we should probably avoid as daily performers), but to place blame solely on that one maneuver is unfair. I could go on forever about the topic, but I’ll leave on this note; a healthy Shibata could shrug off ten headbutts and wrestle 60+ minutes. In our sport, there are always risks in everything we do. Heck, ten years ago I tore my meniscus on my entrance, resulting in surgery. As we take more punishment and fatigue of the schedule starts to set in, the percentage of injury naturally increases and the body’s limit drops considerably. Shibata was the kind of guy who would always give 110% and had been on a nonstop tear since before the G1 2016. He pushed past his own boundaries to keep his pace for the fans of NJPW, and the fatigue of being overworked for a year combined with the exhaustion of a 38-minute match is the true culprit.”