Kenny Omega On How A Match With AJ Styles Affected His Career

As part of Chris Jericho's Cruise was a Talk is Jericho podcast session with all of his friends who were onboard. Among those was Kenny Omega who was asked by Jericho if he ever went one-on-one with the man he succeeded as the leader of the Bullet Club, AJ Styles.

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Not only did Omega reveal a virtually unknown match with Styles, but he also discussed how Styles was influential in Omega not walking away from his wrestling career.

"Of course we did multiple tag [matches] together," Omega said about being in a ring with Styles. "But a lot of people don't know I have had one singles match with AJ and I actually accredit that match with keeping me in the wrestling business. I was sort of at a crossroads, no pun intended. This was in 2006 and I wasn't sure if I was going to do the MMA thing or if I was going to do professional wrestling.

"I was competing in jujutsu all around the country and I was training in exhibition and sparring matches to do full-contact MMA. It was enjoyable but I found that my in-ring performance was suffering because there's an aesthetic look you have to retain in professional wrestling."

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Omega then said if he's cutting weight for MMA then his physique will suffer when it's time to wrestle.

"If I were to concentrate on one, the other was going to suffer," Omega admitted. "So I wanted to use that AJ match in Winnipeg to determine what my future holds. Am I going to go into fighting or am I going to do the wrestling thing?

"After the AJ match I thought, 'Oh my goodness. There's this guy who is so much better than me but we have this chemistry together.' It showed me my true potential and something I could achieve that I hadn't actually seen yet."

Omega then realized that during his jujutsu tournaments he was thinking more like a wrestler and going for great finishes and exciting matches rather than like a mixed martial artist and going for the win.

"I found out that I'm an entertainer. I'm a performer, so I'm going to give this wrestling thing one more shot," stated Omega.

Shortly thereafter Omega did a tour with PWG where he met The Young Bucks and that led to him going to Japan where he became a multi-time champion including the current Heavyweight Champion.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Talk is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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Source: Talk is Jericho

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