Kenny Omega Says Five-Star Match Ratings Shouldn't Be Handed Out Like Candy
Kenny Omega may also be thinking the rating of matches may have "jumped the shark" and that a few factors should be considered when doing it.
The former AEW World Champion was hanging out on his Twitch channel when the subject of match ratings came up. Omega laid out his own base vision of how a bout should be graded.
“Did it start a movement? Did it continue a movement? Was it something that became something that sort of etched in the annals of history for like all time? I believe that’s what an actual five-star match should accomplish.”
Omega has had his fair share of five-star matches courtesy of the Wrestling Observer, yet Omega does think that the stars shouldn't be thrown around liberally.
“You shouldn’t just hand them out like candy. It shouldn’t be because the moves look good. It should be because the moves look like they hurt. It’s a perfect blend of everything that you try to do and accomplish as a professional wrestler and that’s without exposing the trade secrets.”
Names like Omega, Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada prompted Meltzer to buck his own ratings system by adding a "sixth" and "seventh" star to some matches and the gimmick of star ratings continues to cause plenty of polarizing opinions online.
A WWE Hall Of Famer who happened to never receive a five-star rating from Meltzer is Kurt Angle. In the past, Angle has playfully dismissed the process, but on the very same Twitch stream that Omega critiques the ratings system, he also noted that 'The Olympic Hero' was his all-time favorite wrestler.
