Kenny Omega officially joined All Elite Wrestling earlier this week after signing a four-year deal following the briefest of free agency periods after his previous contract with New Japan Pro Wrestling came to an end.

Omega was regarded as the biggest free agent in the business but he wasted no time making his decision as soon as he was available to sign a new deal.

Now Omega will join fellow wrestlers such as Cody, the Young Bucks and Chris Jericho in the fledgling promotion that hopes to send shockwaves through the professional wrestling industry, particularly in the United States.

While Omega admitted he received a ‘fantastic’ offer from WWE as well as overtures from New Japan in an attempt to keep him, the prospect of working with All Elite and the options that came along with that deal was exactly what he wanted.

“Now with AEW, I’m signing four years. Yeah so it’s like I’m signing four years and it felt natural,” Omega explained on the Wrestling Observer podcast. “It’s a large contract for me, largest one I’ve signed but I didn’t feel like I was making the wrong choice. It was cool to feel that way.

“With the contract, it leaves me very open for a ton of crossover potential, which is always the most important thing for me because I don’t necessarily want to be remembered for what I do in the ring. I want to be able to crossover into all sorts of media so I’m going to be able to do my thing with E-sports and be able to do all sorts of stuff with ESPN and the documentary even. These opportunities now, there’s no red tape. It’s in my contract where I can freely do those and pursue them and that’s great.”


Omega signing with AEW may seem like he’s leaving New Japan behind for good but that’s not actually the case.

According to the 35-year old Canadian, part of the benefit of his contract with AEW is the ability to return to New Japan whenever he desires.

“I have it specifically written in my contract and this is something I couldn’t have done on the WWE end of things, I have it specifically written in my contract that I can go any time I want and appear for New Japan Pro Wrestling,” Omega stated.

Omega says he nearly re-signed with New Japan with an option to appear in AEW whenever he wanted but this ended up being the better deal for his career.

The chance to crossover between AEW and New Japan or with any other professional wrestling promotion out there is something Omega says the new organization will embrace.

Beyond anything else offered to him, Omega sounds like that could have been the determining factor in joining AEW for at least the next four years.

“What we are is a celebration of professional wrestling,” Omega said. “What that means is guess what, the CML guys that AAA hates or the AAA guys that New Japan hates, well some of their guys are better than your guys and that’s just the way it is.

“We’re going to use the best that is available to us and we’re going to have a very peaceful, celebratory ring where everyone can show their craft, show their art and we’re going to have a number of dream matches or I don’t know if you could call them dream matches but call them matches that you never thought you would see in a wrestling ring and I think it’s going to go make for a more interesting landscape for professional wrestling in 2019 and beyond.”