With Wrestle Kingdom 13 around the corner, the war of words between Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi are heating up.
In September, Tanahashi was critical of Omega's in-ring style, saying that only the last five minutes of an Omega matches matters as there is no story. Omega responded, saying that he and his friends are "fucking bored" when they watch a Tanhashi bout.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone Japan (translation via Chris Charlton), Omega continued to criticize the in-ring performance of Tanahashi.
"I understand that Tanahashi must feel disappointed that a wrestler like me is at the top of the heap," said Omega. "But to say I have no grace? I'd say that applies to him, not me. To suggest that mine is a style that isn't New Japan like is a big problem. It's saying Tanahashi's style, the style that presents himself as the ace, is the only style that's correct. I understand and respect that Tanahashi did so much to pull NJPW out of the dark ages, but from there, recently, the ones that have brought us to this awesome level have been Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito and of course, the best bout machine, Kenny Omega."
Omega continued, using his love of video games to note that Tanahashi's style is outdated compared to the next gen systems.
"It's absolutely important to have faith and belief in your style, but to push that on everyone else, I'm not behind that. Tanahashi's like a NES game," explained Omega. "The NES is a great system. There's a lot of fantastic titles, but since then, everything's evolved. There are games now that nobody thought would be even possible back then, and fans enjoy them too. Maybe you can say that the NES games are true core of games. That might be right to an extend, but to take that and then say modern games lack grace, that's just an old man yelling at clouds. The important thing isn't just evolution, but who the evolution is for. I want the fans to be happy. Worldwide. For New Japan, we stream to a global audience, and I want to wrestle in a way that appeals to a global audience."
Omega and Tanahashi will settle the score on Jan. 4 at Wrestle Kingdom 13 when they battle for the IWGP Heavyweight Title.
