Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Kenny Omega

Go To

  • Anti-Climax: The infamous AEW Revolution 2021 finish after the Moxey vs. Omega match where the supposed big explosion after the match turned out to be sparklers and an underwhelming fireworks display.
  • Audience-Alienating Era: Some fans of NJPW-era Kenny view the AEW-era of Kenny as one, pointing to bad booking (also on his part, since he has creative control) as the main culprit to why he isn't as "over" in 2020-2021 as he was back in his legendary 2017-2018 run in NJPW. It got so bad even Dave Meltzer compared Kenny to WCW Jim Duggan (in that he's "over" with the crowd but is booked for the midcard). Other points of contention include his booking for the women's division (badly, in the opinion of critics) and his heel turn allegedly happening too late and as a cowardly chicken-shit heel instead of the "Best Bout Machine". Of course, for other fans, he's been better than ever.
  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • There are some who believe that Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks intentionally set themselves apart from the rest of Bullet Club in a manner that harmed the stable's cohesion and took away from its "brotherhood" image. Aside from the Bucks assuming de facto creative control over angles seemingly designed to lead to internal feuds between Kenny and a key member (first Adam Cole, then Cody Rhodes) via their Being the Elite series, Omega made comments at times in interviews hinting that Bullet Club is merely a cash cow to him and the Elite is his true interest. This was addressed throughout 2016 and 2017:
      • He paid tribute to Bullet Club's former founding leader and second ace on his way to winning the G1 Climax tournament in 2016, then tossed aside the G1 flag in favor of raising the Bullet Club.
      • His character's relationship to Bullet Club itself was gradually established as them being the army backing him in his mission to change the wrestling world.
      • Finally, his G1 2017 match against Tama Tonga was an intense fight with Tama questioning his loyalty due to the Elite gear he wore to the ring, and after Kenny won, despite taunting Tama by facewashing him from behind to get him to get up, the two came to an understanding and reconciled with wolf hands.
    • And heading into 2018, just when the division between how the two sides of Bullet Club portrayed themselves became too much for many fans to calmly abide and even the fanbase began to divide over which era or division of the Club they preferred, the angle between Omega and Cody teasing their split began to kickstart again with Omega's former partner Kota Ibushi used as a launching point.
    • AEW's solution to the disappointing finish to AEW Revolution 2021?note  Blame it all on Kenny and his bad planning (he had the plans for the fireworks drawn in crayon, as he posted on Twitter), who was righteously upset about it afterwards.
  • Awesome Music: Kenny's themes in AEW, DDT and NJPW were all this.
  • Broken Base: Kenny in All Elite Wrestling; irrespective of his management of the women's division, there's a divide of opinion over how Kenny is presenting himself in what is effectively his own promotion.
    • While his selflessness in not hogging the spotlight like Kevin Nash did is considered admirable, a lot of his fans are disappointed by how "nerfed" he is compared to how he was in NJPW, with some arguing that if he really is the best wrestler in the world then he should be more selfish (or actually get booked to win more against top competition).
    • While he had a long and successful run as the second Tag Team Champions with Adam Page, he's done very little of note as a singles star aside from his bloody feud with Jon Moxley, despite a number of excellent (but ultimately insignificant) individual matches with the likes of PAC and Joey Janela, and hasn't even challenged for any of the two men's singles titles since the company was founded.
    • This was reversed after he hit his Rage Breaking Point when he and Hangman lost the Tag Team belts and he underwent a slow Face–Heel Turn before beating Moxley for the AEW Championship by cheating, then aligned himself with Don Callis and declaring he was going to become "the belt collector", proving that AEW had just been playing the long game with Omega.
    • The infamous All Out 2022 media scrum where CM Punk eviscerates Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks as well as Adam Page. They (minus Hangman and plus Punk's trainer Ace Steel) ended up in a backstage altercation and at the time of this writing, the fanbase is split betwen siding with Punk and siding with The Elite.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Especially as "The Cleaner". Since blending the Capcom/videogame fanboy he usually presents as with a brand new cocky hitman persona and making it all his own, as well as being taken as a more serious contender in the process, Omega has absolutely shined in and out of the ring. With his incredible talents realized, he's been looked at by fans, critics, and promoters alike as one of the best wrestlers in the world, possibly approaching or surpassing fellow Bullet Club top gun AJ Styles, a man considered by many to be the best wrestler in the world over the past decade.
  • Evil Is Cool: He tends to be this as a heel largely due to being Fun Personified, making him either hilarious or awesome depending on the character's threat level.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Probably the most intense rivalry among any section of NJPW fans was the international fan feud between the two sides of Bullet Club itself, the Elite contingent led by Omega and the Bucks or the Tongan-guided unit returning to BC's covenant roots. Even after the official split, Elite fans and Bullet Club fans still clash in comment sections of videos where one side brings the other up.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite only making a few appearances in Mexico, he routinely gets cheered over the homegrown Mexican talent.
  • Growing the Beard: While always an exceptional in-ring talent, for years Kenny had been pigeonholed in the role of 'Comedy Wrestler With Technical Chops', until he assumed the mantle of leadership of the Bullet Club. After that, he began transforming himself into a bona fide main event talent, and is now on the short list of people considered the best wrestlers in the world today.
  • Memetic Mutation: Kenny and Broken Matt Hardy chasing down and striking Sammy Guevara in a golf cart during a street fight became an instant meme due to the combined ham factors of the wrestlers (plus Chris Jericho as Guevara's partner in the match) and the absurdity of using a golf cart in a wrestling match.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • No matter how well he does in AEW or NJPW (and he's doing a fine job), no one will ever let him forget the time he wrestled a 9-year old girl, or that other time he wrestled a blow-up doll. Omega himself has admitted that he wouldn't mind showing it to people, as he wants them to be exposed to the fun and wacky side of wrestling.
    • On the other side of things, for example, Jim Cornette (well known for taking wrestling as Serious Business) considers them two of the "dumbest" and "most insulting" things he's seen in pro wrestling, thinks they're examples that Omega had "no respect for this profession", and adds that he "would have had his ass beat for exposing the business" if he took part in such matches twenty years ago.
  • Tear Jerker: Kenny's Wrestle Kingdom match against Tanahashi. This is his last match in NJPW before leaving to form AEW with the Elite (Cody, Young Bucks, Page etc). During his entrance, you could see his expressions is full of despair and he seemed to be holding back tears. It was a difficult goodbye for him. His theme song to said entrance didn't help.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • We're meant to sympathize with Omega in the 2018 schism involving the Bullet Club, and in turn regard Cody as a power-hungry manipulator and Tama Tonga as a relic of the stable's past who thinks he's more important than he really is.
    • Trouble is, neither the Club nor its fanbase ever fully united behind Omega's direction in the first place, as he and the Young Bucks — The Elite — openly paid more attention to the ROH guys they were bringing in than the core of the Club in NJPW.
    • Furthermore, the Elite and their ROH buddies were all more focused on being comedic and off-color than being openly badass and cool like the Club's previous iterations were, leaving the core NJPW guys to keep the old attitude alive in a lower capacity.
    • Tama's impassioned rants against the Elite's higher priority and divisive angles invoke Catharsis Factor among many Bullet Club fans. As for the issues within Being the Elite, while Omega's conflict with Adam Cole was clearly instigated by Cole's ambitions, one could very well argue that the fault lies with Omega for his feud with Cody.
    • Between his secretly hitting on Cody's wife Brandi Rhodes over the phone, the "white flag" incidents during both men's mid-2017 title matches with Okada (and how much pettier Omega's act looked compared to Cody's), the attempt to poison Tama Tonga which Cody intercepted, and the interfering with Club beatdowns and fellow members' title challenges, it's not that difficult to see why Cody would see it in his or Bullet Club's best interest to remove Kenny from the equation.
    • When even Matt Jackson, one of Kenny's main cohorts in ejecting AJ Styles and Adam Cole, one of the two guys who fought with Prince Devitt in his last match in NJPW, is telling Kenny that Bullet Club never had problems like this when AJ and Fergal were the leaders, after months of the anti-Elite pocket of the BC fandom practically shouting the same thing...


Top