Kenny Omega is The Cleaner and he’s putting on some of the best matches on the planet at the moment. Even though he’s a household name in Japan, he didn’t make it big in the United States until his incredible matches were enough to capture North America’s attention from across the Pacific Ocean.
There were rumblings that he would appear at the last WWE Royal Rumble. Of course that didn’t happen and if Omega never goes to WWE at this point he might be just fine. After all, he sells a ton of merchandise and his career shows no signs of slowing down on the independent scene.
But a lot of fans might not realize Kenny Omega actually spent some time in WWE before taking his talent to New Japan Pro Wrestling. He was in Deep South Wrestling under the watchful eye of Bill DeMott and needless to say, he doesn’t have too many good memories about his time working in the WWE machine.
While in Deep South Wrestling they tried to put him in a couple tag teams and even had him paired up with Heath Slater for a time. But nothing seemed to click. Kenny soon asked for his release from WWE and it was granted. The rest, as they say is history.
Omega recently spoke to Edge and Christian on their Pod Of Awesomeness about his experience while in WWE. It turns out he found it to be a stifling environment at the time. In the end, his experience in WWE didn’t hurt how he viewed himself but how he saw the entire WWE machine.
“I felt like any attempt to show my personality was sabotaged in a way a little bit. I would have a move, for example, and then, I’d have somebody tell me exactly why it makes no sense […] I was kind of mindf-cked a little bit and I started to, not lose confidence in myself, but just lose confidence in the system.”
By all reports, NXT is a much different place than Deep South ever was. WWE’s future Superstars are able to apply their craft and learn from some of the best coaches around in a supportive and motivating environment. So Kenny might not have the same problems if he gave WWE another go.
However, we’d be willing to bet if Omega were to ever come to WWE with his name being so huge already he might not even need to step foot in developmental before jumping straight to the main roster.
