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The wrestling world has been buzzing about Kenny Omega. For years, he has been on the short list of most talented and popular workers not contracted to WWE. His big loss at Wrestle Kingdom 13 and absence from New Year’s Dash seem to confirm he is done with New Japan. While the general consensus was that he would join Cody Rhodes and company in their new All Elite Wrestling venture, the latest rumors suggest that WWE has assembled a blockbuster deal to try to court him. While Omega has openly commented on turning down big money deals from WWE in the past, if Vince McMahon really is stacking millions upon millions of dollars, like only he is in a position to do, it seems to re-open the door for Omega to potentially sign.
What if Omega not only signs but gets some creative pull as a signing bonus of sorts—winning the Royal Rumble? This article looks at the possibilities.
#5 Omega is the iron man
While Kenny Omega is beyond reproach as a professional wrestling talent, one of the challenges of him getting a push as big as winning the Royal Rumble upon his debut would be that more casual, WWE-only fans may not be familiar with him.
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In a case like Omega’s, one of the best things WWE can do is to let his wrestling speak for itself. Omega is a one of a kind worker who garnered attention based on his in-ring talent, so letting him run the gauntlet through a good chunk of the Rumble could be an appropriate way of not only asserting that he’s great (both in kayfabe and reality), but also a way of introducing him to fans via a microcosm of him fighting his way through the WWE roster. This approach would resemble Ric Flair’s booking in the 1992 Royal Rumble. Though he had started appearing on WWE television months earlier, the 1992 Rumble was in many ways his coming out party for the WWE audience. He entered at number three and outlasted the whole field to capture the WWE Championship. WWE could do a lot worse than to big Omega in comparable fashion.
#4 A WWE Championship Triple Threat at WrestleMania
If Kenny Omega were to win the Royal Rumble and thus earn a world title match of his choosing for WrestleMania, the odds are he would be gunning for the WWE Championship. His style is a better fit for the SmackDown roster, and the top of the card is already crowded on Raw, with Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose already in the conversation over there.
WWE may hedge its bets with how over Omega can get with WWE fans in a short time. The two world title structure means that he could be in the non-main event world title match to begin with. Moreover, WWE may package him with two or even three stars better established with the WWE audience. There’s an argument that multi-man matches muddle things, but there’s also some exciting potential for a match with Omega and guys like Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, or Shinsuke Nakamura, any of which could be explosively good at ‘Mania.
#3 More talent from New Japan on the way?
Kenny Omega’s name isn’t the only one that has surfaced in WWE rumors as of late. Japanese names like Kazuchika Okada have been circling, too, and it would make a fair bit of sense for WWE to not only pursue Omega but talents who had worked with and around him to produce great matches.
Omega winning the Royal Rumble would, perhaps above all else, be a testament to the company making him a big deal right out of the gate, and committing to his style of wrestling to at least a degree. To be fair, we all saw what happened to Shinsuke Nakamura after winning the 2018 Royal Rumble, after which he faded to mid-card relative obscurity. Nonetheless, with WWE’s stated investment in catering to the fans and a big money contract for Omega, him winning the Rumble may symbolize more than just an individual push, but a legitimate paradigm shift for WWE.
#2 WWE sees All Elite Wrestling as a big threat
WWE has some just cause to be concerned about All Elite Wrestling. While the new startup is unlikely to truly compete with WWE anytime soon, they lose a different kind of threat. Cody Rhodes has already demonstrated the principle that a dissatisfied talent can walk from WWE and actually better his fortunes. Moreover, the success of All In demonstrates that AEW can offer a substantive alternative style of programming for wrestling fans. All of that means that the new company could draw away a segment of WWE’s business, and cramp the company’s style by gobbling up under-appreciated talents.
The fact that WWE would make Kenny Omega such a huge offer provides evidence the company is trying to stymie AEW out of the gate by keeping Omega from them. If WWE were to position Omega as the Rumble winner, it would represent a next level commitment to him and potentially others coming over from Japan, and perhaps trying to capture what appeals to AEW’s target audience.
#1 Omega has stroke
If Kenny Omega were to broker a deal that included him winning the Royal Rumble right from the get-go, it would mean that he’s more than just a highly valued recruit. He’d be a guy with stroke.
To be fair, Omega has been open about passing up on better paydays to work for a WWE in favor of staying more true to himself. While the dollar amounts may grow higher and higher, it does make sense that Omega would, at the end of the day, want more than just cash in order to sign with WWE. Positioning a star so unproven in WWE with a win this monumental would seem to confirm that Omega is entering WWE with an uncommon level of influence over not only his character but the company’s creative direction.
Might WWE also guarantee Omega a world title run or PPV main events to sign? If winning the Rumble were part of his deal, then little else seems out of reach.
