Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay caused a lot of buzz after their memorable bout at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2 and one aspect was the move Ospreay delivered to Omega.
Your new IWGP United States Champion delivered a devastating Tiger Driver ’91 move to “The Cleaner,” which had the disturbing visual of Omega landing directly on his head. Social media and wrestling news sites blew up after the PPV ended and a lot of talk circled around the potential danger of doing such a move.
Speaking with Uproxx’s Raj Prashad, Omega addressed being on the receiving end of such a scary manuever.
“Hopefully it leaves fans questioning is he okay? It’s all about the match. We’re battling in that ring and I want you to go along for the ride with us. If they thought everything else in that match was just the worst s*** they’ve ever seen in their life, but that one moment, got them for a second, ‘He’s not going to kick out, he’s not going to get up, they better get the gurney, call in the f***ing airlift,’ that’s perfect. And if I had a whole match of those types of reactions, even better. It’s all part of my job, it’s all part of my profession. These are things that I take a lot of pride in and I think that’s why when I went into this match, there’s a lot of physical and mental preparation that goes into it because I was really preparing myself to ‘wow’ the crowd to this kind of level.”
Kenny Omega: “I Think A Lot About Life After Wrestling”
Omega, who will wrestle Wheeler Yuta this Wednesday on “AEW Dynamite,” wasn’t done and put any fans’ and colleagues’ minds at ease if they did think he was taking too much risk in the spot.
“People that wanted to s*** on something or people that want to frown upon something, or for people that want to say, ‘Well, if it were me, I wouldn’t have done that.’ I didn’t get to where I was by being able to do things that everyone else could do. I realized, and I recognized that I do have special talents that maybe not everyone else can do. Without revealing too much, I think a lot about my health. I think a lot about life after wrestling. I think a lot about my current life. I think about next week’s Dynamite and the week after that. I would never do something I didn’t trust myself in performing 100 percent.”
H/t to Fightful.