Kenny Omega at DDT part 3

[cringekingsmashko]

This post covers in depth the first half of Kenny’s 2nd visit to Japan (Jan 2nd-18th 2009)

Previously Kenny left Japan on 4th of September 2008 not knowing if he would ever have the opportunity to return. He was next brought over by DDT on the 2nd of January 2009. In the meantime a few things are worth noting:

Kenny held onto his Jersey All Pro title and wrestled in Europe for the first time in September 2008. He also most likely met/became friends with El Generico around this time. They had a matchin the UK together and it’s probably no coincidence Kenny was at PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles just over a month afterwards.

He continued to meet up with the people behind the M-drop news website who originally put him in contact with DDT. They recapped the Jersey All Pro matches he had for Japanese fans and published interviews with him in on their website. During one of these he expressed an interest in wrestling the Japanese independent wrestler Dragon Solider LAW and reported the loss of his beloved Nintendo DS.

Kota, already rumored to be working hurt during the summer, continued to wrestle up until the end of October 2008, after which he pulled out of going on a Chikara tour due to injury. He was off recovering for a large portion of the time Kenny was gone. As to what the nature of injury was? I’m not sure. Near the end of December he went on Samurai TV to collect the Indie Best Bout prize that was awarded to he and Kenny for their match.


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On the 5th of December, DDT president Sanshiro Takagi announced that Kenny was coming back.

Jan 2nd Finally, Kenny Omega has come back to DDT!


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Nakazawa: I went to pick up Kenny in Narita. We got to the office. There is already a fan parcel for him…? The contents are a DS! Actually Kenny it seems lost his DS on an airplane the other day, it was read on the blog and found out by fans.

Kenny was very thankful. Thank you!

Well I guess everyone will go to dinner now!



Jan 3rd Muscle House 7 at Korakuen Hall



There’s a really involved storyline on this show and only one written account so hey, I did my best to understand it.


Basically it’s going to be a busy year for DDT so Muscle Sakai, (the producer and star of the ‘Muscle house’ shows) decides to transition to a behind-the-scenes role. It’s a tag team tournament and Kenny brought in as the surprise partner of a wrestler called Zhao Yun Ryu who was originally meant to be teaming with Muscle Sakai.


So, Kenny is wearing the horns because I think Muscle Sakai sometimes wore them as like a cosplay of a guy from Kinnikuman? (I feel like I need to give some sort of explanation but there was a point here where I had to stop digging deeper and just accept the buffalo horns.) Anyway, they win their first tournament match but get knocked out in the second round by Sanshiro Takagi’s team.


Jan 4th – Shinkiba Expo - Ibushi, Kenny and Yasu Urano vs Toru Owashi, HARASHIMA and Yukihiro Abe
*EDIT 23/08/19: This match has been uploaded to DDT Universe!

This is Ibushi’s first match back after his two months off from wrestling. Kenny and Ibushi hit their double kip up and double enzuigiri. Interestingly, Griffon591 says Kota’s still doing less flips than usual, and chalks it up to his being conscious of his recovering injury. It’s worth noting that after being in this match, he skips the smaller shows that Kenny, Nakazawa and the other DDT regulars are on for the next two weeks.



Kenny pins Abe and cuts a promo to the crowd. He say’s that he came back to DDT for two reasons, firstly because he loves the DDT fans, and secondly, to go for the tag team championship with Ibushi.


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Bonus post-show messing around:


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January 5th - 8th Recent Kenny information


Ibushi, Kenny, Nakazawa and Matsui (DDT referee) go to the shop they always go to in Ikebukuro. They do Karaoke and play wii bowling and tennis. This is the same shop Kenny takes the documentary crews to in both Japanophiles and Second Home. The owner had a daughter and son-in-law who were working at ROH. They asked her to look out for Kenny while he was in Japan and she took care of him. On the 7th they go training at Mid-Breath Fitness Gym.


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Jan 11th New Beijing Wrestling


Like Muscle 7, New Beijing Wrestling was kind of a heavily themed/parody based show. You can see the logo is just a rip off of the New Japan logo and a lot of the DDT wrestlers are in costume, wresting as historical/fictional Chinese characters rather their usual personas. There is a match involving jiangshi and one in which the emperor of Rome and the emperor of China square off.

Kenny is booked to fight the Huang He river. Unfortunately, the river was unable to make it to Japan as it is too big to get on an airplane. But that’s okay! Kenny Omega and his newly appointed manager (Ken Ohka doing a bit) travel to China to have the match and the footage is broadcast back to the arena live!


The river is ready to fight!


Kenny shoots a Hadouken at it. But it isn’t powerful enough. Ken Ohka urges the crowd to believe in Kenny and give him their strength like he’s some sort of big beefy Tinkerbell. It kind of works but then the river uses its powers to zap Ken Ohka and he bursts into flames.


Kenny has no choice but to run. He goes to the New Beijing Wrestling offices.


And inside he finds…


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…The two responsible creating the ‘river’ with a blue screen. The feed goes to static and the match ends? …I guess?

Kenny is also in the main event playing a character and backing up his partner from the Muscle House show Zhao Yun Ryu, but I have no fucking clue as to what the story is in this one so I’m not going to even try and summarize it. He has his hair all slicked back though and it makes him look totally different.



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January 12th Kenny vs DSL


This is a really cool little match and I was pleased to find thorough recaps of it from a few different sources. Also, there might be a DVD of it somewhere? I couldn’t find that though.

Kenny apparently mentioned he was a fan of DSL when he went on Samurai TV with Nakazawa and Ibushi back in August. DSL heard about it and was flattered but Kenny was leaving Japan soon after, so he didn’t think a match would be possible. Then in November, DSL read Kenny’s love call on M-Drop and managed to get in contact with him.

DSL, by the way, stands for Dragon Soldier LAW.


Not what you were expecting from a name like that?

DSL wasn’t/isn’t a DDT wrestler and I’m not sure what promotion (if any) this match came under. DSL was part of a promotion called ‘FU ★ CK!’ that Kenny mentioned being a fan of and that Kota had wrestled with before. So I’m assuming he knew about the guy from that.

To give you an idea, here is DSL in a match from 2015 fighting a cat in a ring made out of snow. Because why the fuck not?

About 70 people showed up to watch the match, including Griffon591 who caught Kenny and Michael walking around the area before they arrived at the meeting place.


The venue was a small house-like building with a few different rooms that could be hired out for meetings. It’s in the middle of a residential area.


The match starts off in the little garden outside. They fight with flowerpots, the blue tarp they’re meant to be fighting on and Kenny puts leaves in DSL’s mouth.


Eventually Kenny gets DSL in a headlock and they go back into the little meeting room.


There are some hijinks with a bucket and Kenny and Michael end up 69-ing because again, why not? While DSL is distracted by Michael, Kenny manages to hit him with a low blow and rolls him up for a sneaky 3-count.


Having cheated their way to victory, Michael and Kenny take the money and run. The referee (and spectators) encourage DSL to go after them.

They fight in a convenience store…


…and with bikes and baguettes. Kenny pours beer over DSL…


This…er… happens.


Finally, they end up in a vacant lot (which has since been built over) Kenny wins again but he’s a better sport about it this time.


Kenny and DSL hug and then DSL gets him with a stunner


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Nakazawa: “Well, tomorrow I will practice in a certain place with Ibushi-san & Kenny. Practice is from the afternoon. Even so, I have to go to bed soon. Kenny said: “I want to develop collaboration of special tag moves with Ibushi!“ So much enthusiasm. N… wait? Does that mean I was invited to become a test subject?”



Jan 13th Ibushi vs Kenny rematch??



…But In practice. It is a story of sparring and arcade games.Well yesterday luckily other wrestlers came to practice. I did not become a test subject. But a dangerous cooperative technique has been developed. I do not want to eat that even with a thick soft mat and headgear. Well that is to say it is a great move.

After that, Kenny taught Ibushi-san his technique of jiu-jitsu, Ibushi-san taught Kenny to strike and exchange technologies that are not good for hard hits. I also did a separate spar for bed and standing techniques. Kenny’s way of teaching was polite and easy to understand. I am doing judo, so I understand some of the ground work, but Kenny is really good. He seems to have won a jiu jitsu tournament in the past.

Well actually, there was a kotatsu in the dojo, but I lost it to the cold and on from the middle I was caught in the kotatsu while staring at the two of them eagerly practicing. f (^ _^;)

But Kotatsu best! I want you also in my house. (Lol) Well, after that we ate rice and went to a nearby arcade.

The entrance and the toilet are changing like a haunted house there, I know quite a work to get inside, but it seems to have surprised Kenny. I was surprised when I was first brought there.

After that everyone fought with Initial D or cooperated and cleared the Let’s Go Jungle! Hmm, Capcom vs Tatsunoko It might be interesting. It seems to come out with Wii, is not it? Well tomorrow is DDT’s New Year’s party. With the two of them together, what’s going to happen? (Lol)


Given that this is when Michael specifically mentions them working on their tag team moves + golden shower finisher, I’ll put Kenny’s take on it here. This is from his Highspots shoot interview from 2014:


Kenny: “When I first came out in Japan I was only supposed to be there for a month and that was supposed to be it. They said like: Hey you’re here for a month, and I knew that, where it’s like, the month is over see you later thank you so much for everything that you’ve done but like, bye bye.

Luckily in my second match for the company I had what was awarded the match of the year in Japan that year. So the company sort of felt handcuffed and thought like, this guy can’t win like match of the year and be advertised on TV as a match of the year winner and then he just disappears, so I got brought back again. So, I had another month and the pressure was on. What am I gonna do to keep my job out here? But within the boundaries of what the company will allow me to do.

So what they had me in was a tag angle, so I thought: Shit. A tag angle where it’s tough to stand out as a singles performer without looking like you’re trying to hog the spotlight. So instead, that’s when I tried to accent Ibushi’s sickening athletic ability, and then match it on my own end, and then come up with a double team finishing move that no one’s ever seen before, which is like the same corner double 450 splash and we practiced it so we had the same jump height the same rotation speed and landing on the guy perfectly to really blow guys out of the water. And then once people saw that, DDT thought like: Oh man, we gotta bring this guy out again?!



Jan 14th DDT New year party 2009

I haven’t been able to dig up much on this, just going to include a paragraph on it for completeness sake as Michael mentioned it in the blog post above. It was like a staff party I think, so obviously not written up as diligently as the fan attended DDT parties. It was described as ‘regular’ ‘good’ ‘lively’ and ‘crazy’ depending on who’s blog you go off. Nakazawa didn’t write anything about it at all afterwards but according to HARASHIMA, he conducted an experiment on if mayonnaise could neutralize wasabi at some point during the evening.



Jan 17th Osaka tomorrow!


Kenny, Ibushi and Matsui go bowling. Michael wasn’t there to interpret but Matsui said they managed to communicate somehow.


January 18th Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi & KUDO defeat HARASHIMA, Shoichi Uchida & Toru Owashi

This was Kenny’s first match in Osaka! Unfortunately, that means the usual bloggers weren’t there to recap it. There’s only the extreme party write up and some post show fan photos.


They try out the cross slash in this match but no golden shower yet.



Extreme Party: In the end Kenny and Ibushi close the show.

Kenny (In Japanese):"Ibushi-san, say something in English.”

Ibushi (holding his head): “Next … 1st RING …”

Kenny (taking the microphone): “OK! Osaka! Maido Ookini!”


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To be continued…

Part 4