New Japan star Kenny Omega was a guest on a recent episode of Talk is Jericho where he talked about his time in WWE Developmental territory, Deep South Wrestling.
The memories aren't entirely positive.
“The experience just kind of reinforced more what I thought already was that I really need to make something of myself outside of here before coming here because, I mean, I was a nobody and I understood that I was a nobody and the guys are going to treat me like a nobody and they wouldn’t trust me with anything, any of my different ideas. But I felt that I could be this guy that could make this company millions and millions of dollars, but I first had to prove that I could do that on my own, on my own accord.”
That confidence in himself prompted him to leave the WWE system and try to use his creativity elsewhere. It ended up working out okay.
“I decided to put in my notice and give it another shot in the indies and see if I could get to Japan and work my way from the bottom up there. It was [a tough decision to walk away] and I remember that morale there was really low at one point in time and Johnny Ace had said, ‘I’ve heard that a lot of guys don’t like it here and that if you want to quit and if that’s the case, just come talk to me first and we’ll have a chat,’ so it’s not that I was… my morale, the day-to-day stuff wasn’t good because the morale was low. Like, it sucked to be around such negativity at one point in time, but I didn’t mind the training. I loved the physicality of the training, contrary to what people might think. I loved doing a ton of pushups and squats and running. That stuff was all fine by me. It was that I felt there was no light at the end of the tunnel, like, I was just always going to be this kid that was treated as this green piece of trash. And, do you know what I mean? And there’s no way to grow from that.”
From the interest he's drawing from the WWE now, it's safe to say he's grown a lot during his time away from the company.
