Don Callis Discusses Kenny Omega’s Past And Future

During a recent appearance on the Jim Ross report, NJPW commentator and Impact Wrestling executive Don Callis discussed all things Kenny Omega.

He spoke in length about his longstanding relationship with the newly crowned IWGP Heavyweight Champion Omega, how Omega has improved over the years, and whether we will ever see Omega work for IMPACT Wrestling.

Reacting to Omega’s recent victory over Kazuchika Okada, Callis admitted the feeling of seeing Kenny win was “euphoric”, given their close bond.

“I’ve been on this journey with Kenny Omega since he was a 16 year old kid who I booked.” said Callis.

“I gave him his first break wrestling for the promotion I had in Winnipeg. And his uncle, The Golden Sheik, who was an indie wrestler in Winnipeg helped train me in the [pro wrestling] business in 1989, so my roots with Kenny go back many years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk0EnBJP_2c

“I’ve been on this journey with him, and specifically since I’ve been in New Japan and we have a very close relationship. We talk about ideas, we do things, I helped put together the match between him and Chris [Jericho] for the Tokyo Dome, so to see Kenny, and how hard he works, and how seriously he takes this business, how he wants to change the business for the positive, to see that kind of manifest itself in this huge victory [over Kazuchika Okada], it was just such a, I don’t know, euphoric, great feeling. I’m like, ‘yeah, in wrestling sometimes we get s**t right and we really got it right.'”

Given their tight relationship, many have speculated that Omega could one day appear in IMPACT for Callis, and Callis stressed that he has a “never say never” attitude in regards to it.

“I kind of say, ‘never say ‘never” and I think that one of the things that we’ve been doing under Ed Nordholm here at Impact is breaking some longstanding paradigms of pro wrestling.” Callis said.

“The intellectual property stuff that we’ve talked about before, but also we’ve been working with multiple people now and now recently announced by Chris Jericho and I know [Ross] will be on that cruise, so that’ll be cool, get to have a beer together.

“It’s going to be Impact and Ring Of Honor on the same cruise ship, so there’s some stuff that’s probably going to happen and I don’t think you can have those talents in a closed environment like that, so we are working, in a sense if you take that, with Ring Of Honor right now.

“We’ve got Taiji Ishimori coming in for our pay-per-view and our TV in July. The Bone Soldier just started with New Japan, so we’ll see what happens. How many people would’ve thought that Chris Jericho would’ve headlined the Tokyo Dome with New Japan Pro-Wrestling?

“I was so sheepish when I pitched it to him because he always told me, ‘I will never work for anyone except Vince McMahon and I have a deep respect for Vince.’ Obviously, he took Vince into consideration. Vince is the first guy he told about it. Nevertheless, it shocked me that Chris was on a New Japan show, so I’ve learned to say, ‘never say ‘never” in this business.”

KENNY OMEGA SIGNING FOR IMPACT CONFIRMED!

 

• don callis
• Kenny Omega
• IMPACT
• wwe

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