Kenny Omega Says No One Can Talk About AEW All Out Incident, Advises Fans To Let It Go

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Kenny Omega reiterated that no one involved with the incident at AEW All Out is allowed to talk about it. He also suggested that fans let it go. Of course, it has been widely reported that there was a brawl at the event between The Elite, CM Punk and Ace Steel. Punk is now rumored to be on his way out of the company, although he’s reportedly still under contract at this time. Here are highlights:

On the decision to have a big entrance at AEW Full Gear for the Elite: “We knew we had to make it special for the fans. It felt like we left people in limbo, so we had to come back emphatically. Our goal is to make wrestling feel like a rock concert. We wanted people to focus entirely on the match, and whether you were rooting for or against us, we wanted people to enjoy it. As soon as the music hit, we wanted it to be a spectacle. We wanted people to know they were in for a ride. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the performance.”

On what happened at AEW All Out: “There are things no one can talk about, so I’d encourage people to let it go. It doesn’t change that we want a team effort in AEW. I don’t even mean implicitly myself and my opponent. It also means the referee, the fans, the people who set up the ring, everyone–even a technical error can ruin the memory of a match. I can refer back to the exploding barbed wire death match. So I encourage people to move away from it because there is no information to be released. Though I cannot talk about it, I do want the fans to know I still want the best for pro wrestling.”

On tribalism among wrestling fans: “The day after the pay-per-view, I was absolutely devastated by the loss of Jason David Frank. He’s one of my childhood heroes. That evening, there was a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club where five people died. It’s absolutely terrible. After such tragedy, it puts everything in perspective. This isn’t Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks against CM Punk. It is people trying to show off their craft. You can boo Kenny Omega, or the Young Bucks, or CM Punk, but I hope people don’t forget we’re human beings struggling to show our art.”

On training during his time away: “I’m finding that I really have to push hard past my limits to create change. Sometimes that means I push myself too hard. I was able to get myself into better shape in the time away because I had a goal and a vision. But it almost came to a screeching halt when I strained a tendon in my knee because I was pushing too hard. The time away wasn’t time to rest. That was time for me to put in the work. It was time to train two or three times a day, increasing the intensity of those sessions. I wanted to come away from the time away with something positive.”

On AEW Fight Forever: “It’s a lot of fun. For people looking for an accurate representation of AEW and our characters, wrestling style, and feel, this is going to be the game for them. If you played the old SmackDown! vs. Raw game, it has that zaniness, some of the same control schemes as No Mercy, and times have changed since 2000–so there are sequences and moves that have never been part of a wrestling game before.”