Ric Flair is an admirer of Kenny Omega. On the first episode of Ric Flair Wooooo Nation UNCENSORED, The Nature Boy was asked by co-host Mark Madden about his thoughts on the pros and cons that come with the former AEW World Heavyweight Champion.
“I don’t see a weakness,” Flair started the discussion off, “And after being in Mexico with him wrestling Andrade I became even more impressed because seeing someone on TV and being around him, meeting him socially is one thing and he’s a wonderful kid and I think the fact you’ve mentioned he’s wrestled everybody, every style, around the world and that’s what it takes to really become a top guy in this business. You have to have had different opponents with different styles.” Flair puts Omega in the same category as AJ Styles and Randy Orton, two stars he also sings the praise of in the episode. “There’s a lot of good ones but I put those three in pretty much a class of their own.”
Both Flair and Madden agree that Kenny is a rare breed going today due to the fact that he’s so well-travelled and diverse in wrestling against different styles. Madden states that a lot of wrestlers today are only taught one style, much different from wrestling’s previous landscape.
“It’s totally different and it’s unfair really to judge a lot of these kids because they haven’t had the opportunity to wrestle anywhere as an example in NXT for the WWE,” Flair said. “You know, how many different opponents are you allowed to have? It takes five, six years of being there and having so many different opponents that’s how you improve as a performer and certainly the people if you’re really good at what you do, they learn a lot from being in the ring with you and from your experience.”
Something Madden had to wonder about Omega initially when he first made the transition over to America is that to if his style and approach would get lost in translation from Japan.
“The fact that he survived Japan will tell you how tough he is,” said Flair. “If you wrestled over there it’s not like it was in the 70s and 80s by any means, but the kids are tough. They’re brought up tough, they go through these dojos. There’s nobody over there holding their hand. If you want to break into the business even to this day over there, you’re going to pay the price. They’re going to test you mentally and physically.”
Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone
Check out the entire first episode of Wooooo Nation UNCENSORED below:
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