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In the context of an era where you can walk up to someone and call them “fat, smelly, and ugly” and then when they get mad, laugh and say, “Dude, I was just trolling you, settle down,” Kenny Omega took some digs at NXT talent in a recent interview at Sportskeeda. The following are key excerpts:
•”You can call it a war if you want. It’s like, to me, we’re in a completely different kind of business. I mean what they’re doing is different from what we’re doing. It’s weird, because it’s hard to say you’re going to war with people that I call my friends.”
•”[W]hen I sit back and look at the grand picture, I’m going to war with these dudes that, if we were on the same show together, the same promotion… let’s pretend there were no borders. Let’s pretend there were no promotions. Let’s just pretend there’s just one big promotion. If these guys were in the same show as me, they’d be in the dark match. They’d be in the opening match of my main event match.”
•”You wanna call that a war, you wanna call that competition? Go ahead. Maybe it’s fun for you to do. That’s cool. But we’re different planets. And you’re going to see that right away, when you see 10000+ arenas sold out. You’re going to see smiles on fans’ faces. You’re going to see real stars. Not developmental talent, but real stars appearing on your television sets, every week.”
The following, for context, is a subjective roughly curated side-by-side list of the top 15 male wrestlers on each roster.
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Kenny Omega Chris Jericho Cody Jon Moxley (f/k/a Dean Ambrose) Hangman Page Pac (f/k/a Neville) MJF Shawn Spears Matt Jackson Nick Jackson Dustin Rhodes Pentagon Jr. Rey Fenix Darby Allin Joey Janella |
Adam Cole Velveteen Dream Matt Riddle Johnny Gargano Tomasso Ciampa Kushida Kyle O’Reilly Bobby Fish Roderick Strong Keith Lee Dominic Dijakovic Killian Dane Cameron Grimes Pete Dunne Walter |
Hey @KennyOmegamanX remember when my match with @RealKeithLee embarrassed yours on your PWG homecoming weekend of BOLA 2017? Tune in this Wednesday to NXT TV on USA at 8pm so two developmental guys can show a real star how it’s done, again. https://t.co/EhNNG5mCL4
— Dominik Dijakovic (@DijakovicWWE) September 19, 2019
He’s not entirely wrong. If you’re looking at the rosters side-by-side, the top 5 in each are all really good. AEW has more name recognition in their stars though, which I think is where he’s coming from with his comments. AEW also is deeper, and more talented when you start comparing the 2nd and 3rd tiers.
As big of an AEW fan as I am, I can’t see any card where Adam Cole is in a dark match before Joey Janella or Darby Allin is. He mentioned being friends with a lot of those guys though, so maybe just a bit of ribbing?
If you’re talking just wrestling, I think that NXT’s midcard looks better. AEW has bigger stars overall though and the good ones in NXT will leave for boring Raw or Smackdown eventually.
As far as wrestling goes, most WWE sports entertainers wouldn’t cut it in AEW. Most of them could not keep up with the actual athletes that AEW employs. The same goes for New Japan, someone like Seth Rollins, the champ in WWE, would be a joke in New Japan. Not much talent, can’t work the stick, boring.