The header image for this article depicts part of a very thought provoking and personal video which aired during last week’s AEW Dynamite, and funnily ended with one it’s sillier moments.
I probably should’ve discussed it in depth earlier. Having followed Kenny Omega through New Japan, knowing of the unique relationship of the Golden Lovers, and also actually being big into Undertale as well, I guess I have a unique vantage point on what it all means.
So you’ve probably heard that it’s inspired by a video game called Undertale. The aesthetic is inspired by it, it takes some music and sound effects directly from it, and it ended with Kenny Omega coming out cosplaying Sans, one of the game’s most beloved characters.
It features a face, an obvious take on New Japan’s lion logo, that’s also styled to have expressions and dialogue similar to Undertale’s two key villains. I don’t want to get too far into it here, as I want this to be easy to follow for those who don’t know. But it makes New Japan out to be a very menacing part of his past.
The logo identifies itself as “Cleaner”, Kenny Omega’s most famous nickname, the persona that he devised for himself in New Japan. Kenny’s current angle has him battling with the idea of returning to this to try and get an edge over the likes of Jon Moxley or PAC.
The so-called Cleaner then reminds Kenny of his friends, only to tell him that they’ll all leave him. The Cleaner tells Kenny to “join us”, and end the pain.
Who those friends are here is the key.
This features depictions of many of Kenny’s noted companions in AEW. The Young Bucks, Riho, Hangman Page & Michael Nakazawa. But the silhouetted centerpiece, identified as his BEST friend, is someone that we haven’t seen in AEW and perhaps never will. It’s also a man who is intrinsically linked with Kenny Omega more than anyone else in the world, Kota Ibushi.
While they wouldn’t dare show his face, the shadowy image is pretty clear. And he’s holding a not-quite-close-enough-to-be-infringing-copyright facsimile of the G1 trophy, just to ensure there’s no ambiguity. Kota won the vaunted G1 Climax this year, the same legendary tournament that Kenny himself won just a couple of years ago. He is a couple of months away from going after the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at the Tokyo Dome as a result of this.
According to the Cleaner, he was never on Kenny’s side, and we see his visage disintegrate.
There’s a lot to unpack there, to say the least. It’s somewhat up to interpretation, given that this seems to be the darkest reaches of Kenny’s mind talking to him.
One thing I can say is that the term ‘best friend’ seems a bit of an understatement…
The two of them were known as the Golden Lovers for a reason. When they initially formed in DDT, they were meant to be called the Golden Brothers instead, a simple Dudley Boyz-esque joke on their differing ethnicities. But they took it a different route instead, and became closeted, yet very-very-obviously gay characters. While this was comparable to Billy and Chuck in it’s tone, it’s something that’s evolved to become a little deeper.
A lot of people believe that Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi are, or were, an item in real life. They’ve coaxed and teased this in several ways, never confirming but notably never deconfirming either. At the very least, the two seemed very comfortable with the idea. It added a layer to them and any angle or match they were a part of, one wholly unique.
I can’t speak on their personal lives or tell you one way or another, but I have found myself believing it. It’s somewhat known that Kenny is bisexual. For Kota, less so, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he’d hidden it. The culture of Japan right now is considerably less accepting of the LGBTQ than in the West. It’s accepted that it could never be acknowledged in Japan, and likely would be left a secret, even if was a secret everyone seemed to know. It would be something they could only get across ambiguously, were it real.
One thing’s for sure, the two were extremely close. But now the picture is painted that a rift has grown between them, with Kenny leaving with the rest of the Elite to form AEW.
It should be noted that the two of them are workers, above all else.
They have actually been known to spin and build angles between each other, even when they were in separate companies. They would do this in shoot interviews and press conferences mostly, at varying points refusing to take questions on one another… all in the hopes that one day they would be able to pay it off down the road. This finally occurred with what ended up being a short-lived Golden Lovers reunion in New Japan last year, and the payoff was pretty immense to be fair.
When I see things like this, and hear Kota pretending he doesn’t exist in interviews, it’s easy to think back to times like that and equate them. I’d like to think that there isn’t so much a rift between the two.
But whatever their personal relation is, one thing seems sadly apparent: AEW and New Japan are not on good terms.
Since AEW’s inception, a potential alliance with New Japan has been speculated upon.
Certainly I’m no different, I sorta assumed it would be a thing from the outset. More than anything, and I think this is a prevailing thought among many fans of each promotion, I want it to be the case. It’s so obviously a good move for both of them, and when you love both so much, it’s only natural to want them get along and work together and help each other out. Not to mention the plethora of dream matches and supercards it would open up. The possibilities would be out of this world.
Especially with the likes of Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley still appearing to great success and acclaim in New Japan, the story potential would be insane. Even just having Moxley’s New Japan pupil Shota Umino follow him to AEW would be great.
But… the truth is that it’s unlikely we’ll see any of it occur anytime soon. Because from the beginning, New Japan have been pretty unhappy with AEW’s existence.
At such a key time for them on their quest for international expansion, the Elite and especially Kenny Omega were key pieces to their rise in America. Their leaving at the start of 2019 was a major blow for them, no mistake. Sure, they could’ve stuck around with an alliance, but that wouldn’t be as simple as it’d look.
New Japan wants to stay loyal to it’s current affiliates.
Their main partner for years has been ROH, a company that has survived WWE’s talent raids largely through New Japan talent loans. Suffice to say, partnering up with another, bigger company in America wouldn’t serve their interests at all.
Not to mention New Japan’s partnership with CMLL. AEW pretty much immediately paired up with CMLL’s top rival in Mexico, AAA. So there’d be a conflict of interest there for sure, a tricky political landscape.
Unwilling to break from their current agreements, New Japan swiftly took to looking at AEW as more of an enemy than anything. And nothing that’s happened this year has helped. They signed Jon Moxley, undoubtedly hoping that he could give them a huge boost with their American shows. But then it turned out that he’d signed with AEW at basically the exact same time, and they had exclusive rights to his appearances in the US. Mox has yet to be allowed to work any of New Japan’s shows in America due to this. Again, perhaps something that could’ve been worked out if relations were better, but… they’re not.
So, back to Omega’s Undertale references; a big reason this was notable is because this wasn’t the first time we saw something like it.
This is how Kenny Omega made his leave from New Japan.
The below video is something made, in collaboration with Undertale creator Toby Fox, originally to air during this year’s Wrestle Kingdom 13:
It would more or less act as the video package for Omega’s IWGP Heavyweight title defense against Hiroshi Tanahashi. But days before the show, it was publicly released and stated that it wouldn’t be airing at WK after all. New Japan definitely already knew the Elite were leaving by the time the show came around, so they probably weren’t as willing to go along with his requests as they otherwise would’ve been.
Parts of it did atleast play in his entrance video as he came out, as a bit of a compromise, and Omega made what ended up being his final entrance for New Japan to one of Undertale’s most beloved themes, Hopes and Dreams.
With his future in such uncertainty at that point, it was loaded with meaning for him. But sadly it appears part of those hopes and dreams haven’t been realized.
Every member of the Elite lost at WK 13, which I’m sure wasn’t a big surprise. But then, they were pulled from New Year’s Dash, effectively New Japan’s Post-Mania Raw equivalent. And they weren’t happy about that. It was a pretty clear sign that New Japan were disowning them. Later the two companies held a meeting, but nothing seemed to come of it.
The events of this haven’t been forgotten, and what we saw on AEW Dynamite last week was basically a continuation.
Whilst it kicked up a whirlwind of speculation about a relation between the two companies again, the truth is it was meant to convey the exact opposite. In the video, New Japan and Kenny’s time there is depicted as a part of his history that he’s better off walking away from.
Nick Jackson recently took to Twitter to make it as clear as he could that it’s simply not in the cards. It’s always possible that things are just being kept close to the vest, and dealings are going on secret, but there’s ultimately no reason to assume that aside from wishful thinking.
I’d love nothing more than to see this marriage, and I’d like to think that within the next few years, feelings will change. But at the moment, that looks to be a long way away.
