Originally published at Kenny Omega speaks about AEW All Out situation, backstage atmosphere leading up to it, hopes 'other parties' are doing well
Omega chats the dubbed ‘Brawl Out’ situation.
Coming out of AEW All Out 2022, there was a physical altercation that took place and at the time, the parties involved were reported to be Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson), CM Punk and former AEW producer Ace Steel.
Punk and The Elite were taken off television despite all parties involved becoming champions at the pay-per-view. On the newest episode of The Sessions with Renée Paquette, Omega joined the podcast and opened up about the All Out situation.
He started off by talking about the AEW he came back to after recovering from his injuries. He was wondering what he got himself into and stated that ‘strange’ things were happening. Omega compared it to the GIF of the person walking into the room with a pizza but the entire room is on fire and he’s acting as if everything is fine.
He added that the general public might not ever truly know what occurred that night or how it could have been prevented and that’s a shame. Omega mentioned his time playing organized sports and said there are times when fallouts with teammates happen but things usually come back together. He assumes that this is not that world anymore.
I felt that the story I was able to tell with Hangman (Adam Page) was one that I was very proud of and I thought that the people were behind him and I was happy that we were moving forward in a direction that didn’t necessarily require me. I felt that now is a good time to get this stuff (injuries) taken care of. Then I felt like eight months had passed and it was time to come back and it was kind of like the GIF of the dude walking in with the pizza boxes and the whole room is on fire and I didn’t get it. I was like, what’s with this strange atmosphere? What’s with this strange aura? Why does something feel so ominous right now? And I didn’t even know, I couldn’t figure it out and next thing you knew, there was more stuff happening. Again, it’s so surreal because it’s almost like it never even happened. Of course it happened. I hadn’t even gotten familiar with my surroundings yet or refamiliarized backstage with the new AEW at that point because we had many new people in the locker room and a lot had happened in eight months. So to kind of come back and see a lot of old faces and be like, ‘Oh hey, oh hey’ but then feel this eerie sort of — it felt like I was in Eerie, Indiana for a second. It was like, oh boy and then, stranger things started happening when I was like, oh man, what do I do? This isn’t right. Someone needs to be the voice of reason. This is silly and it’s just like things fell off the rails and we were just involved in a very silly situation that people are probably gonna be talking about for months and possibly years to come. I don’t know.
Here’s the way that I look at it: I’ve been involved in competitive sports, contact sports on the highest level. Some people on our roster have, some people on our roster have not. But I feel like if you have, you’ve probably been in a spat or two with a teammate and maybe sometime, a time or two, it might come to blows. It happens so, coming from that sort of background, there was a point to it all when I thought, oh, this just happens. We’re gonna get over it. Let’s just calm down and talk it over. No, nothing is — we’re all doing okay here, you know? We’re getting it out of our system, no problem but, let’s maybe stop, you know? And we just don’t live in that world anymore I suppose. Sometimes there are things, especially now when you’re in a multi-million, billion dollar industry when there are sponsorships on the line, TV deals on the line, it’s not like high school football, it’s not a little tiff that you would have with your fellow amateur wrestling team or maybe someone held a submission too long in jiu jitsu training. It’s not that and these things shouldn’t even be happening. It’s a shame that a lot of people and the general public aren’t ever gonna know what went down and how it could have been prevented or how it could have ended differently. That’s just sort of how things go. Again, when it’s a big business operation, I don’t think anyone is happy that it happened or is proud that it happened or anything like that. I think across the board, everyone thinks it was a terrible situation that was unnecessary.
Following up on that, Omega was asked if he thinks the backstage atmosphere has changed since everything went down. He feels that it has and shared that he was ‘sworn to secrecy’ to not talk about the details of it and could not talk about it legally.
Omega said no one was injured and he’s grateful for that. He expressed that himself and The Young Bucks have moved on and he hopes the other parties are doing well.
Yeah, I really do (feel the atmosphere has changed since the All Out situation). There was a while when — and I can understand the confusion. It’s sort of like, hey, we know this thing happened, we heard this thing happened. It’s all over the dirt sheets. Why don’t we know what happened? And it’s like, we’re gone and we’re kind of sworn to secrecy. We can’t say anything, legally so that was the poofy part where it was like, well why doesn’t anyone tell us what’s happening? And then you’re forced to form your own opinion or come up with your own theory as to what exactly happened… Of course (it can be a lot when left to your own devices) and especially when it’s like, ‘Well I’m more of a fan of one person than the other, so here’s the way I’m gonna create the story that it puts this person in the best possible light.’ It might be that. Chances are, it’s something else or it might be a combination of various theories and we might never get to speak about it but what’s important (is) that no one was seriously injured emerging from that and I’m so thankful for that and we’ve moved on with life. I am completely fine, it doesn’t dictate what I do, what I say. I’m sure The Bucks are in the same boat. I can’t speak to the other parties. Hopefully they are doing well, I mean that. That’s the sitch.
The Elite returned to AEW at Full Gear and they are the reigning World Trios Champions. They’ll be defending their titles at Revolution against House of Black (Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews & Brody King).
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Sessions with Renée Paquette with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
