During the height of the pandemic in 2021, AEW World Champion Kenny Omega embarked on a “Belt Collector” tour where he was actively winning championships in professional wrestling companies like AAA and IMPACT/TNA while still being AEW World Champion.
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Omega is now shedding light on a dream match that never was — Josh Alexander vs. Omega. Around the time he was IMPACT champion, Alexander was climbing the ranks of IMPACT as a singles star with the X-Division Championship, waiting to break out into full blown stardom as the World Champion.ย
Just How Likely Was A Match Between Josh Alexander and Kenny Omega?
Though the two Canadian wrestlers came into the wrestling business at around the same time, a match between them never happened on the independents and according to Omega, it was never even set in stone in IMPACT.
“I’ll be transparent, I’ll be honest. I don’t know if you guys remember, but while I was doing the belt collect thing, I was doing pre-tapes all the time,” Omega stated on his Twitch channel. “I was doing eight weeks of TV in a day. One of the pre-tapes they said, ‘You’re going to walk through to where the ring is, but you’re going to bump into Josh Alexander and there is going to be a bit of a confrontation.’ I said, ‘Where are we going with this? Is there physicality? I didn’t know I was going a thing with Josh. That’s great. I love Josh. I think he’s fantastic.’ He goes, ‘No, we’re not.’ I said, ‘We’re not? Then why are we doing it? Don’t you think people want to see it?’ ‘Yeah, that’s the point. ‘Yeah, but if they want to see it and we don’t give it to them…’ ‘We’ll worry about that later.’ ‘Ohhhh, man. Can we maybe do it at some point?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, maybe we can get around to it.’ I’m telling you, there was no actual plan plan. My apologies for that. Right off the bat, I thought that was odd. I’m all about throwing in a red herring, but I was only there for a certain amount of time. Eventually, I was going to be losing that belt. I was more than willing to work with anyone. They have such good guys.”ย
That backstage segment aired that June, two months into Omega’s reign as IMPACT World Champion. Alexander was in the midst of stating that he’d keep lining up contenders for the championship because IMPACT deserves a champion that the fans and the locker room can be proud of. Omega walked in during that moment and didn’t like what he was hearing from Alexander, calling him a “lightweight.” Back in 2021, Alexander even teased the match himself, stating in interviews that he could beat Omega “99 times out of 100.”ย
“I do not think Kenny Omega wants to face me,” he said in an interview with SEScoops. “I don’t think he has any intention of ever getting in the ring with me. So I think him chirping and saying his little comments like that, that’s just his way to try to get a rise out of me and everybody else. It gets people talking and wanting the match. I think my social media blew up more than probably anything ever has before, just in the anticipation for that possibly being a match, so it’s what people want to see. It’s good for business and it’s good for everybody else. I think it’s something that should happen. whether it does or not, not up to me, unfortunately. If that match ever were to happen, I would bet on me 99 times out of 100.”
H/T: Fightful
