NJPW News: Kenny Omega Discusses His "Competitive Rivalry" with a WWE Superstar

Kenny Omega

What's the story?

New Japan Pro Wrestling star and current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega was an invited guest on ESPN. Omega discusses the relationship between pro wrestling, video games, NJPW, WWE and the Fighting Game Community.

ESPN Reporter Arash Markasi interviews Kenny Omega in between their own head-to-head throwdown in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. Kenny Omega talks about the recent challenge and competitive rivalry between him and Xavier Woods.

In case you didn't know...

Kenny Omega and Xavier Woods are good friends, outside of wrestling. Omega is an avid gamer, as is Xavier Woods. He frequently uses video games as an inspiration to his character. For instance, his finishing move, "The One-Winged Angel" was named after the villain Sephiroth from "Final Fantasy VII" on PlayStation.

Additionally, he named one of his signature moves, "Hadouken" based on the character Ryu from the Street Fighter II series. He has also dressed as Liquid Snake from the Metal Gear franchise for his entrances, along with going so far as to using Mega Man's Dr Wily Stage Theme for entrance music several years ago.

The heart of the matter

Arash first asked Omega how the entire thing came to be. Omega said:

"I mean, we always had this feud, him and I. We thought we could be friends but how wrong I was. We are both competitive. We couldn’t accept that one of us was better than the other, that one of us was the alpha dog.

We played originally in an arcade at New Jersey. We went two apiece. We always said that if there was a venue, if there ever was a time and a place, that we were going to settle it at “Street Fighter”. He played Ibuki. I played Cody, my first love from “Street Fighter IV”, and we had the showdown.

We were able to actually invite our friends and include our fellow brethren, so it was The New Day vs The Elite. We had it out. We battled it out in front of WWE fans, New Japan fans, and fans of just gaming in general."

Omega also revealed that he felt by having an inter-promotional type battle, both he and Woods had changed the landscape of wrestling.

What's next?

Kenny Omega, along with Cody Rhodes, Marty Scurll, Adam Paige and The Young Bucks are now officially "The Elite", ending their affiliation with the Bullet Club. Kenny Omega will be competing as part of the "Lion's Break Project 1", between November 10th and 11th. He will be facing David Finlay (Fit Finlay's son).

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