In an interview with Fightful, Gabe Kidd spoke about his brawl with Kenny Omega at NJPW Power Struggle and why he felt disrespected by Omega. At one point during Omega’s media to promote the show, he referred to Kidd as “Greg”. Here are highlights:
On Kenny Omega getting his name wrong: “I was always trying to talk to him off camera. The only reason all those Japanese press people were there is because they just interviewed him. I knew where he was going to be after he got off the mic. I was like, ‘Hold up, I’ve never meet this geez before, I’m going to go speak to him.’ They hear something happening and go interrupt. There was somebody else filming as well, apparently. I just went to talk to him. I’ve never spoken to the guy in my life. I mentioned his name when I was drunk on Twitter. I mentioned his name and he wrote some paragraph back to me, ‘Maybe if you’re lucky and win the G1 I’ll bless you with the Kenny Omega touch.’ You think I give a fuck about you, geez? I was just saying it because I know there are some people that would love to watch me batter you. I wasn’t trying to do anything. I told him before anything, before pro wrestling, before anything, I’m a man. I don’t mess around with this pro wrestling stuff. You mess up my name intentionally — All these guys like MJF and Kenny, they think they’re acting so cool when they get my name wrong when they obviously know it and they’re just trying to act cool in front of another bunch of uncool people, which are their fans. It’s just funny to me,” said Gabe. “He called me Greg Kidd, acting like he didn’t know who I was, like he hadn’t responded to me already. First of all, you look dumb.”
On Omega’s demeanor when he approached him: “He was a lot calmer than mine. I never met him before, so I don’t know if he’s heard stories or spoken to people about me. I don’t fuck around. I don’t fuck around with people trying to disrespect me. We’re supposed to be in a collaboration with AEW. What kind of collaboration is that? When they just bring their guys over for our big stuff and we go over there for fucking Ring of Honor. Are you mad? I’m a fucking famous wrestler. I did Ring of Honor and I beat two people.”
On Omega being unprofessional: “He’s so unprofessional. He goes to the press after that altercation and says, ‘Gabe Kidd is unprofessional.’ I came up to you for a chat and was putting you in your place. Then you wanted to start getting mad, pulling me back. I was starting to walk away. You can watch it. I was trying to walk away and he pulled me back. Trying to hit my hat off, I’ll slap the shit out of him. All these things that have become news in wrestling, AEW Brawl Out, Brawl In, that is the most pussy shit I’ve ever seen in my life. They advertise on national TV, they thought it would be a good idea to show this fight, this talked about backstage fight with CM Punk and Jack Perry, and it was a push and front choke for two seconds. You are all pussies. If you want to be in a collaboration, that’s fine, but I’ll come to Japan and I’ll slap the shit out of any of you. Especially that knobhead, talking about me being unprofessional. He ran to the press. ‘I don’t want to wrestle him, he’s unprofessional. I want to wrestle….’ and listed off a bunch of names. Come on man.”
