AEW World Champion Kenny Omega recently spoke with Tokyo Sports about a wide variety of topics heading into his AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam match with Bryan Danielson. While mostly portraying his onscreen character, “The Belt Collector” took more than a few shots at the WWE, at one point saying about 90% of its roster would gladly make the switch over to AEW. The extended version of the interview was released following the event, in which Omega poked at WWE even harder for their recent booking strategies.
“At the start, there was a huge gap between WWE and AEW. (AEW) was just some fledgling promotion after all. But have you realized how the tables have turned? WWE is desperate,” Omega said (translation via Hige Channel). “They keep bringing back Legends every other week. COVID is a terrible thing, and we never wanted it to happen but it is what it is.”
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Omega also took the opportunity to try and set up a dream match between himself and Roman Reigns to crown the “real” world champion — “There’s been quite a few (WWE stars) already (here) in particular…I don’t really have anyone? Besides, I’m not lacking in opponents. But like I said, I don’t exactly have anyone in mind but….if I must say I’d love to go against (the current WWE Universal Champion) Roman Reigns. It would be a great opportunity to show who’s the real World Champion.”
Danielson and Omega’s match at AEW Grand Slam resulted in a 30-minute time limit draw, with many fans crowning it as a Match of the Year contender. Danielson cut a backstage promo afterward saying he’d claw his way through the rest of the roster to get another shot at Omega.
“Goddamn, I feel alive,” Byran said. “It’s hard, right? You go out there, and I wanted to face the best guy here. I didn’t just want to come in and start slow, I wanted to come in hot. I felt like I did that. I wish I would have won. But even when you don’t win, god what a great thing professional wrestling is. It’s magic, right when my music hit and I wasn’t even out there, it felt like magic. I’m so grateful for the experiences I’ve had in wrestling, but that was pretty much unlike anything I’ve ever done.
“I was asking (Kenny), I said, ‘Hey let’s do one more.’ He said he didn’t want another one. And I get it, not everbody loves the brutality the way that I do,” he added. “But I get how AEW works, there’s a ranking system, and there’s a ton of guys here that I’d love to kick their heads in for. I’m going to go through all of them, and no matter how many guys it takes, my next goal is to go for that AEW Championship.”
