Don Callis Talks Putting Together Omega vs Jericho in New Japan

AEW Champion Kenny Omega and ‘The Invisible Hand’ Don Callis recently appeared on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast. The duo discussed a number of topics during the podcast, including Omega’s recent match in AAA, Don Callis’ ‘megaplan’ and the NJPW match between Jericho/Omega that ‘changed the wrestling industry.’

Much has been said about the Wrestle Kingdom 12 match between Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega. AEW President Tony Khan has mentioned himself that the match is the reason he went ahead with creating his own promotion.

IMPACT Wrestling EVP Don Callis has taken credit for putting the match together. The Invisible Hand described how he managed this during Talk Is Jericho. “So, I’m in Japan and I’ve thought, as I’ve said many times; a lot of my thinking is what can I do to further the agenda of Don Callis and Kenny Omega? [The agenda] is to control things and to rewrite wrestling history.”

“Kenny didn’t have an opponent [for Wrestle Kingdom]” Don Callis continued. “He didn’t have an opponent he was excited about. How do you follow up the Okada match? The Six Stars and all that stuff? It takes a lot to get Kenny Omega motivated and excited. That’s because he’s next level. And I thought the one match that could do this? It was the dream match against Chris Jericho. It’s the Winnipeg thing, the fact that no one thought you would ever wrestle anywhere other than WWE.”

Callis would then discuss his previous conversations with Jericho, where the former WWE Superstar stated he would never wrestle for anyone other than Vince McMahon. “You had always said to me, ‘I’ll never wrestle for anyone other than Vince.’ I was hesitant to call you, but I thought ‘you know what I’m gonna do it because this is the right match for Kenny.’ And it turned out it was the right match for you [Jericho] too, because you came in did what you do better than anybody else in the history of the business.”

The Invisible Hand would finish by praising Jericho for how he came into New Japan back in 2018. “You reinvented yourself, and you came in there and you terrorized the Japanese like no one since Bruiser Brody. You were like Godzilla. And you were, to use my parlance, you were a man among insects in Japan. You were destroying people, and what you and Kenny did? That was all anybody talked about.”