Kenny Omega On Which Feuds Defined Him, Proud of Golden Lovers Storyline

Kenny Omega recently looked back at the feuds in his career that most defined him, including his Golden Lovers arc with Kota Ibushi. The AEW star was asked the question on the Battleground Podcast and defaulted back to his time in Japan.

Omega noted that he understands why most people default to his rivalry with Kazuchika Okada, but noted that NJPW fans will also point out his matches with Tetsuya Naito and Tomohiro Ishii. He also talked about how proud he was of his story with Ibushi and how it spanned multiple promotions. You can see the highlights below:

On Which Rivalry Has Most Defined Him:

“Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people sort of default to the Okada one and I understand why. But I would say that for fans that were primarily New Japan fans, they also would argue that they really enjoyed my series of matches that I had with Naito. They really enjoyed the series of matches I had with Ishii.”

On His Golden Lovers Run:

“For a lot of people — and again, it depends on how it is that you first came across seeing me or what have you. Some of the people know me more because of the Golden Lovers stuff, which is also fantastic, and I think that was some of the most proud storytelling that I’ve ever done in my career. Because that was all — the onus was all on us to continue that story forward and to always sort of implant that in the things we had done when maybe the promoters or the bookers didn’t see the value in it.”

“We had always sort of wanted to not insult the fans intelligence. And regardless of what promotion we were in, we wanted to show that there was this interconnectivity, and there are these human emotions. And that life doesn’t end just because of promotion changes. Relationships don’t end because of promotion changes. And it was cool that we could see this multiple promotion-spanning storyline that took about — geez, like a decade to see the grand finale to. And to be able to be at the forefront of an actual real long term story where the onus was completely on us to tell. For me, that’s a real proud accomplishment.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the battleground Podcast with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.