5 reasons why WWE teasing Kenny Omega in the Rumble is a bad idea

It isn’t good business

Doing what’s “best for business” has become a mantra for Triple H and the McMahons.

What’s most confusing is that teasing an Omega debut without delivering isn’t even good business considering the WWE’s business model when it comes to pay-per-view events.

To really grasp this, you have to think about the type of people who will be excited about Kenny Omega in the first place: wrestling fans. The casual television viewer who has no ties to pro wrestling isn’t likely to even know who Kenny Omega is they way they would a Hulk Hogan or The Rock.

Further, the only way WWE would benefit in a business sense from Omega and the Rumble would be to draw in new WWE Network viewers for at least two months, since the first month is free for all new users. And the viewers that you’d add with a move like that are pro wrestling fans who don’t currently watch WWE, and they probably don’t watch for a reason. They are certainly aware of the company and its events, so they’ve chosen not to have the WWE Network.

By allowing Omega to be associated with the event in WWE content, they’ve planted the seed that he could be at the Rumble. So let’s say there are wrestling fans that decide to get a Network subscription to see if he debuts in San Antonio; are they going to pay for the next month when he doesn’t show up? That isn’t likely. What’s more likely is that these people will be even more turned off because they’ll feel like the WWE was using a favorite wrestler as a cheap marketing ploy.

So in the end, there was really no reason to jump the gun by talking about Kenny Omega. But now that it’s been done, we’ll have to wait and see what happens next.