Top AEW star Kenny Omega spoke with NJPW on a number of topics, including how the Forbidden Door has affected the entire wrestling industry.
Omega said, “I think that the concept of the Forbidden Door now, now that the door’s been booted wide open, it’s less of a — the way that I used to picture the Forbidden Door, you picture the cartoony door at the pearly gates, it’s like you need that special permission to open that thing up. Now, I just feel like it’s a revolving door. But you go out one end, you don’t come back the other, unless you have that passion because it’s opened the talent pool so wide, and it’s made our roster so diverse with so many options that if you aren’t a complete athlete, if you aren’t a complete wrestler, you just can’t hang. So is it special? Maybe it’s lost a smidge of specialness by being able to cross over that plane. But it’s made the competition that much stiffer, and it’s made the competition that much tougher. You can’t succeed now unless you’re absolutely, not only the best in America, but the best in England, the best in Australia, the best in New Zealand, the best in Japan. You have to be one of the world’s best athletes to succeed now in today’s global wrestling climate, and I think the Forbidden Door helped facilitate that.”
On hiw he can be back in top form when he returns:
“Knowing just the weight that was on my shoulders of being the position that I was in for that company [AEW], here we had someone [Okada] that took everything out of me, everything, it took every ounce of my being to finally defeat for a major belt in this company, and he’s coming here 100%, with only the wrestling to have to worry about. I looked at that man as a monster, and I can’t lie, I was scared. I can’t face this guy as current Kenny Omega. So maybe by the Young Bucks putting me out and allowing me to step back and refocus on bringing myself back as the wrestler that I know that I can be, taking the mental burden away of being an EVP, just for a little bit, to focus on what is it that I have to do to get back to that level, I feel like the ghost of my past and the skeletons in my closet have all followed me back to this stage, and although getting sick in the way that I did set me back almost a year now, it’s almost a blessing in disguise because it really allows you to assess things in a different way, and it allows you to prioritize the things you should be prioritizing, and I feel that when I do come back, I can come back with a clear head space and possibly be a top-flight performer again.”
You can check out Omega’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
