Wrestling / Kenny Omega

The Cleaner.
The Best Bout Machine.
The Belt Collector.

And now, he is a two-time PWI's top 500 number 1 wrestler in the world and Wrestling Observers Wrestler of the Year in 2018 and 2021, he once held three different world championships from three different wrestling promotions at the same time, he handed Jon Moxley his first defeat in singles matches in AEW and held the prestigious AEW World Championship longer than anyone at 346 days, he once bought a PlayStation 5 at a store in NOOORTH CAROLINAAAAAAAAAA, he weighs 224 pounds and stands 6 feet tall, HE IS... KENNY... OMEGA!!!

Tyson Smith (born October 16, 1983), better known by his ring name Kenny Omega, is a Canadian-born Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide. Prior to AEW and AAA, he also wrestled for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Dramatic Dream Team, Ring of Honor, Impact Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla and Premier Championship Wrestling. As a member of the infamous gaijin stable Bullet Club, he became its fourth leader at New Year's Dash 2016, after firing previous leader AJ Styles, in a reign that lasted over 2½ years before he and several other Bullet Club members broke off and formed their own faction called The Elite (and its webseries Being the Elite).

He's a one-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, a one-time AEW World Champion, a one-time AAA Mega Champion, a one-time Impact World Champion, two-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion (with The Young Bucks), a former one-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion, two-time IWGP United States Champion, two-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, a one-time AEW World Tag Team Champion (with Adam Page), one-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion (with Kota Ibushi), and the first ever gaijin to win NJPW's annual G1 Climax tournament in 2016.

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This trope list is written by a troper from NOOORTH CAROLINAAAAAAAAAA!!!

• The Ace: Kenny's near universally recognized as one of the best wrestlers in the world - if not the best - and excels at seemingly any kind of match he finds himself in. He can do anything from straight wrestling to tag team wrestling to comedy wrestling to deathmatch wrestling and anything in-between.
• A House Divided: Kenny's prioritization of The Elite over the rest of the Bullet Club resulted in the stable becoming this for a large part of Kenny's reign as leader.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: His stint as Bullet Club leader led to this. While he gladly honored Bullet Club's time-honored heel tactics for his first year and showed a lot of unity on that front with his stablemates, he slowly morphed into a tweener who had occasional babyface behavior and was mainly heel only due to his association with Bullet Club.
• Ambiguously Bi: While it isn't the full depth of who he is as a character or performer, the fact that Kenny is bisexual has been patently established. The only part that's "ambiguous" is the nature of his off-and-on Tag Team and complicated relationship with Kota Ibushi, which has been heavily suggested to be romantic but has never been stated as an Official Couple.
  • Kenny seems very comfortable around other guys, has liked tweets where he's referred to as bi, has also previously mentioned being so dedicated to his work that he has no time for a "boyfriend or girlfriend", and has openly stated he swings both ways.
  • In (kayfabe?) interviews where he's asked about dating, Kenny has also made references to being bisexual. In NJPW On The Road: Kenny Omega #5, Kenny says "I need to start searching for a wife or a boyfriend." In another interview, he asks the interviewer "woman or a man?" He replies "Oh you mean a woman" after the interviewer clarifies her question.
  • During his Bullet Club run, Omega and Ibushi would keep all interactions to a bare minimum for years, but they still managed to keep the hype for an eventual match at nuclear levels due to their mutual pining both in interviews and on social media. When the two re-joined forces in 2018 it was very much framed as two former romantic partners re-uniting. Add on top of that Cody Rhodes kissing Kota to make Kenny jealous and the whole Bullet Club split looks more like Kenny being caught in a love triangle. Kenny even retweeted a thread on twitter calling the whole storyline "a happy gay romance." Kenny has also taken other opportunities to reference Kota as his lover/partner in the ring and out. The official Golden Lovers CD Album has a picture of Kenny and Kota kissing behind the CD.
  • The "bi" part of it is brought up when Brandi, Cody's wife, kisses Kenny. She claims he likes it and is a fraud, but since he "swings both ways", it would make sense that Kenny might enjoy a kiss from a woman like Brandi. (Cody confirmed that the "fraud" thing was more about Kenny kissing his stablemate's wife despite his reunion with Ibushi, deliberately ignoring that it was Brandi who initiated the smooch as a distraction for Cody's attack.)
  • During his feud with Jungle Boy, Kenny multiple times went out of his way to comment on Jungle Boy's good looks and how he would be "all up in that ass" when they faced each other. Not to mention when their match finally happened, Kenny immediately backed Jungle Boy into the corner and began grooming his hair.
• Arch-Enemy: Kushida, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Michael Elgin, Hirooki Goto, Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Chris Jericho, Cody Rhodes, Jon Moxley, PAC, Adam Page, Will Ospreay, Konosuke Takeshita
  • Outside of Kayfabe, Jim Cornette is Omega's biggest critic, up to expressing a desire for other wrestlers to outright cripple Omega, and comparing him to Vince Russo. Given Cornette's hatred of Russo, that is not a statement he would ever make lightly. Making fun of Omega is a weekly feature of Cornette's podcasts, and he has made it clear that nothing short of apologizing for ever entering the business and retiring would make Cornette forgive him.
• Audience Participation: Since becoming "The Cleaner" - and seeing fellow Elite members The Young Bucks do it at Wrestle Kingdom 11 - the crowd have started doing a five-note drum "chant" matching the Terminator 2 theme tune to cheer him on.
• Badass Longcoat: As "The Cleaner", Omega wears one that feels very familiar...
• Bar Brawl: During the first Stadium Stampede match, Kenny and Hangman Page fought Jake Hager in a brawl.
• Bait-and-Switch: In early 2019, Kenny was a free agent with rumors rampant that he was heading to WWE.^note For bonus points, had Omega signed around the time the episode was taped, he would've probably had the chance to appear at the Royal Rumble.. On Episode 137 of BTE, Kenny went to Nick Jackson for some advice on whether to start playing the PS4 remake of Resident Evil 2 as Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield.
• Bash Brothers: With Michael Nakazawa. They even have tag team moves unique to them only. They also had a match against the Best Friends when attempting to win that team name for themselves. Of course, the Best Friends won and kept their name.
• Bastard Understudy: Became this to the Bullet Club leadership as AJ Styles' send-off from the company at New Year's Dash 2016. Despite being brought in as a mercenary and to fill the Junior Division hole left by original leader Prince Devitt, he never openly showed disloyalty to the club's senior members and leaders. However, as soon as he saw weakness in the club with every major member save The Young Bucks, who he considered his "Elite", losing at Wrestle Kingdom 10 the night before, he made sure he was the one to pick up the ball by pinning Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura in his and AJ Styles' tag match against Nakamura and Yoshi-Hashi, then attacked AJ and convinced the club in a brief argument to finish Styles off, essentially marking him as the new leader.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Part of his shtick is that he is essentially the (O)Mega Man of wrestling: After defeating an opponent in a high profile match, don't be surprised to see him start using the finishing move of his recently finished foe...Though he only uses those moves as a set-up to his finishing move, as if he doesn't truly respect the move itself. Highlights include nabbing Shinsuke Nakamura's Boma Ye knee strike, AJ Styles' Styles Clash, and, stemming from their epic trilogy of matches, the wrist-lock setup for Kazuchika Okada's finisher, combining it with his signature knee strike to create the Raintrigger.^note Okada's finisher - named after his own in-ring nickname — is the Rainmaker, while Omega's knee strike, as with many of his moves, is called the V-Trigger in homage to his love of videogames; specifically referencing Street Fighter V.
• Big Bad: He became this in NJPW when he usurped control of Bullet Club, as Suzuki-gun were busy terrorizing Pro Wrestling NOAH and Chaos effectively become tweeners out of popularity. He did have a rival for the role in Los Ingobernables de Japón leader Tetsuya Naito, however. Two after Suzuki-gun came back in 2017.
  • He became this in AEW after he cheated to win the AEW World Championship from Jon Moxley.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Riho. She's his tag team partner of choice in mixed tag matches, and has been working with him since she was very young.
• Black Comedy Rape: During his and Chuck Taylor's feud with El Generico in PWG, the duo spiked Generico's drink and gave him stomach trouble. While Generico was holed up in the bathroom, Omega and Taylor ambush him. The sounds of the resulting ambush imply that the duo is sexually assaulting poor Generico and the whole thing is Played for Laughs.
• Blatant Lies: His entire heel gimmick as "The Cleaner" is (or at least originally was) based on this; the specific lie being that he's a Boomerang Bigot towards his adopted home. He spoke English to a Japanese crowd, pretended not to know any Japanese, claimed not to care at all about the Japanese culture and people and to only be out for money and titles. Except the way that he did this clearly tells you it's all bullshit—the English he speaks contains deliberately Japanese inflections, his aesthetic was almost entirely based around three characters from Japanese video games^note Basically, think of Dante's trash talking combined with the villainous overtones of Wesker and Sephiroth., and much of his trash talk and mannerisms came across like those of a stock anime supervillain. With the later reveal of his vision to make NJPW a global success^note which also makes sense of why he ousted AJ Styles as soon as the chance presented itself and the gratuitous outright Japanese he throws into his speeches from time to time, this aspect of his gimmick was slowly phased out in favor of him being a true Visionary Villain.
• Boomerang Bigot: Kenny Omega turned on what was effectively his adopted home. Before joining Bullet Club, he said that he no longer considered himself a gaijin and has the Japanese citizenship to prove it (citizenships for gaijin are notoriously difficult to obtain), but then said he had lied and was interested only in money and the Junior Heavyweight crown. This was ultimately proven to be a lie when he and the Elite took over Bullet Club and promptly began turning into gradual babyfaces, interacting positively with wrestling crowds both in Japan, the US, and abroad, while campaigning to change the wrestling world according to Omega's vision of "love and strength".
• Broomstick Quarterstaff: He took to entering the ring carrying a broom as part of his "The Cleaner" persona, saying that he's going to "sweep" all the "trash" out of New Japan's junior heavyweight ranks. He began using a barbed wire broom as a part of his feud with Jon Moxley. Kenny brought his broom to the Stadium Stampede match at Double or Nothing 2020 only for it to, hilariously, be rendered completely ineffective due to The Inner Circle wearing football helmets.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Paraphrased the quote from Street Fighter when describing his first appearance on Impact Wrestling. How appropriate that Impact airs on Tuesday nights.
• Catchphrase: "Goodbye and—" *kisses finger gun* "—good night. BANG!"
• Cliffhanger: To close episode 90 of BTE, Kota Ibushi joined Kenny to patch things up with The Young Bucks in the midst of a Bullet Club split. Ibushi and Omega reformed their previous tag team The Golden Lovers and later formed a short-lived stable with the Bucks called The Golden Elite.
• Combination Attack: His and Kota Ibushi's "Golden Shower", where they both perform 450 splashes at the same time off of the same turnbuckle. Later on, the Golden Lovers would add the "Golden Trigger", a double team version of Ibushi's finisher, the Kamigoye. Kenny and Hangman Page had their own tandem finisher as well - the "Last Call", a combination of Kenny's V-Trigger and Hangman's Buckshot Lariat.
• Confusion Fu: This is the basis of quite a bit of Kenny's moveset.
• Cool Shades: Part of his look as "The Cleaner."
• Crossover: Fought WWE wrestler Xavier Woods in Street Fighter V during CEO 2016 and won.
  • They would cross paths once again the following year during the Tekken 7 Royal Rumble, with Xavier coming out to Devil's Sky in order to mock him. Xavier would get his proper runback later that night in Tekken 7.
  • They clashed once more in Street Fighter V at E3 2018 in a team match, he teams with fellow Golden Elite members The Young Bucks to face Xavier teaming up with the rest of The New Day, Kofi Kingston and Big E.
• Crowd Pleaser: Frequently states in interviews that he performs for the crowd's enjoyment, and to show everyone that wrestling can (and should) be fun.
• Dark Is Evil: As the leader of mostly-gaijin heel stable Bullet Club, he entered the ring dressed in an all-black trenchcoat, shades, and black boots. He's mostly forsaken this now, opting to come to the ring with at just a t-shirt.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: He defeated Jon Moxley on the December 2 2020 episode of Dynamite, not only being the man to end Moxley's epic 277-day World Championship reign, but the first man to defeat Moxley at all, through any means, since the foundation of AEW!^note Moxley's only "loss" before this was a tag match with PAC where he turned on his own partner and attacked him then walked away to let PAC be pinned, which hardly counts as a real "defeat".. He also handed Christian Cage his first single loss at All Out 2021.
• Dented Iron: Kenny had been working hurt for a long time before his loss to Hangman Page at Full Gear 2021, suffering from various infections, a badly-damaged shoulder, and vertigo. Unsurprisingly, after finally dropping the AEW Championship, he took some well-deserved time off (regrettably having to vacate the AAA Mega Championship first, rather than being able to drop it).
  • He's stated that if he suffers another major injury, he will likely have to retire from wrestling. Not necessarily because he'll be crippled but because he can't face the gruelling rehab again.
• Despair Event Horizon: Kenny skirted the edge of this following his loss to Jon Moxley at Full Gear 2019. Numerous big time losses in AEW, along with his own worries about his friends abandoning him because he wasn't the same wrestler he was in NJPW, reduced him to being a sad sack who spent all day playing video games and getting "drunk" on Nutella. Luckily, Nakazawa and The Bucks helped pull him out of it.
• Determinator: In real life even more than in the ring. The man wrestled a highly-athletic wrestling style while suffering from vertigo for three years, putting on countless top level matches in that time, because he knew AEW needed him that badly.
• Devil in Plain Sight:
  • Within the context of the club, anyway, Kenny Omega's actions at the start of 2016 should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Pretty much everything the man has said in official material since joining Bullet Club was either explicitly or implicitly about himself — even when talking about the club as a whole. His entrance was the most blatantly self-aggrandizing of them all in the way he sang his own theme song operatically, blatantly over-emphasized his gun point pose (still does so to this day), and used his teammates (especially younger members Chase Owens and Cody Hall) as sidekicks and item-carriers. He openly threatened to kill his opponents over perceived slights, and even when standing in the club's midst could often be seen staring off to the side or at one of the others with a crazed look on his face. "The Cleaner" was clearly insane. That said, the Young Bucks were there to keep everything together and when it came down to it, Kenny still occasionally showed clear loyalty to Bullet Club itself for about the first half of his run as leader, as long as spreading the dominance of The Club was still a key to his vision.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: After turning hell in AEW, Omega, even when he has the advantage, will often stop playing fair and will either has the Elite help him or uses one of his many championship belts as a weapon, simply to show his superiorty over everyone in the company. This ended up backfiring on him when Christian Cage reversed his attempt to hit the OWA onto a steel chair the Young Bucks had snuck into the ring behind the referee's back into a Kill Switch, beating Kenny for the Impact World Championship.
• Ditto Fighter: Since AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura's departures from NJPW to WWE, he has occasionally used their finishing moves. He also copied Kota Ibushi and Prince Devitt's finishers during his G1 Climax victory against Hirooki Goto. A more friendly example is his one-man variant of the Young Bucks' More Bang For Your Buck.
• Evil Versus Evil: Bullet Club's rivalry with Los Ingobernables de Japon was this.
• Fanboy: For Capcom.
• Finishing Move:
  • Most famously, a one-handed electric chair driver called the One Winged Angel (or Katayoku no Tenshi if you're listening to Japanese commentary). It's only been completely kicked out of once,^note by Kota Ibushi, at DDT Budokan 2012 and more recent commentary treats it like an instant death move.
  • An electric chair into a bridging German suplex called Croyt's Wrath.
  • A cross-legged Fisherman buster called Aoi Shoudou (meaning "Blue Impulse").
• Flanderization: As is the case with a majority of the members of Bullet Club, Kenny tended to portray a generic foreign wrestling heel gimmick throughout much of his early time with the group.
• Foil:
  • The Inner Circle evidently parallels The Elite. The Inner Circle are ruthless cheaters but very closely-knit while The Elite is a team of dashing aces of wrestling who keep bickering among themselves.
  • To Cody Rhodes. Both founding members of the Elite who serve as Executive VPs of AEW when they're not in the ring, both of them are known for their nerdy streak, and both of them were introduced as charismatic and upstanding faces. But Kenny is a perennial bachelor who's remained consistently in charge of the Elite throughout his time in AEW, he's gotten noticeably more selfish and brutal since his heel turn, and he's known for his quirky personality. Cody, by contrast, is a Happily Married family man who regularly works with his wife and his brother, he eventually leaves the Elite to start his own group "The Nightmare Family", he takes pride in serving as a mentor to younger wrestlers, and he generally favors a more serious presentation.
  • To his longtime rival Jon Moxley, who held the AEW World Championship before him. Both of them are dominant singles wrestlers who are often portrayed as mentally unstable, but Kenny is known for his flamboyant and quirky public persona, he's been backed by the Elite throughout his time in AEW, and he tends to relish the celebrity status that comes with his success in the ring (often letting it go to his head, which contributed to his heel turn). By contrast: Moxley is best known for being a loner, he's famous for his cold and taciturn personality and his humble roots as a working-class street fighter, he generally shuns the limelight and prefers to fight for the simple thrill of fighting—and despite his general antiheroism, he prides himself on fighting fair.
• Foreign Wrestling Heel: The story of his reign at Bullet Club. After initially having dismissed the idea of joining the villainous foreign stable, claiming that he did not consider himself a gaijin, Omega later claimed he had lied and was only interested in money and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. As part of his new persona, Omega, who is fluent in Japanese, stopped talking in Japanese and instead did his interviews in English.
  • Ironically enough, despite being more popular than ever in Japan, going back to speaking Japanese for the crowd and basically being a complete, consummate babyface... he's found a way to slide back into this. Ever since he won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, he's been absolutely trashing the Japanese talent, saying they lack any effort compared to Western talent. Admittedly, Kazuchika Okada didn't help this when he decided to go on a fishing trip after challenging Kenny, while Kenny basically lived in the gym. He's ESPECIALLY taken Tetsuya Naito to task for this.
  • In AAA, this trope is subverted. Kenny bears no ill will towards AAA or Mexico, he's simply out to prove that his home promotion, AEW, is the best one out there.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the entrance for the tag match where he took control of Bullet Club, Kenny told the camera "I've got a secret. You're gonna see some crazy shit today, it's going down. Just you wait!"
  • In the weeks leading up to The First Dance, Kenny would be seen in backstage segments wearing "Cookie Monster" and "Chick Magnet" shirts - both of which are answers CM Punk has given when asked what the CM in his name stands for.
• Four Is Death:
  • The Dream Team - Omega, Cody^*originally Adam Cole and The Young Bucks
  • The Golden Elite - Omega, Ibushi and The Young Bucks
  • The Super Elite - Omega, Cole and The Young Bucks
• Friendly Enemy: Despite the battle lines being drawn between the NJPW and ROH contingents in the first half of 2018 thanks to Kenny and Cody's rivalry, the Club themselves still treated each other cordially, even culminating in a big Too Sweet at Wrestling Dontaku that year which the Young Bucks took part in despite the legal troubles surrounding their use of the gesture. This got quickly thrown out the window when the Firing Squad was formed, with the intent to take Bullet Club back from the Elite's antics.
• Friendly Rivalry: With Xavier Woods. They're from different promotions, even (Woods being in WWE), and Omega is not exactly chummy with said promotion, but they're basically video game buddies.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Went from being a happy-go-lucky gaijin in NJPW to join the Bullet Club and becoming their personal hitman "The Cleaner." Then became one within the Bullet Club itself when, on the show following Wrestle Kingdom 10, Omega betrayed AJ Styles and usurped Styles' position, becoming the new head of the Bullet Club. Within his first year, he would then go on to win the Intercontinental title and then become the first Westerner to win the G1 Climax to solidify how much of a threat he was since turning heavyweight.
• Fun Personified: Kenny was this before joining the club, and only became an evil version upon turning heel and joining them, before reverting back to playing this straight over time with The Elite.
• Funny Foreigner: When he wrestled in Japan before becoming part of the Bullet Club. One could argue that he still is, though a much more villainous variation.
• Going Native: He was an Occidental Otaku even before he moved to Japan, speaks fluent Japanese and, unlike most western wrestlers who typically work for relatively short tours in Japan before going home, maintains a permanent residence in Tokyo and even successfully gained Japanese citizenship, which is really hard for a gaijin to do.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Good hair, natural dirty blonde. Evil hair, dyed black and gray.
• Gotta Catch Them All: After his heel turn and acquisition of the AEW World Championship, he began a run as "the belt collector" in which he would aim to win as many belts from a range of promotions as he can. In addition to the AEW title, he also holds the AAA Mega Championship and currently has his sights on the Impact World Championship. Thanks to his friends in the Bullet Club reunion, he also has access to the Impact World Tag Team Championship and the AEW World Tag Team Championship belts.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Kenny referred to himself as El Omega Campeon during his run as AAA Mega Champion.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: During the Stadium Stampede match at Double or Nothing 2020, Kenny Omega and "Hangman" Adam Page had to break five bottles of "a little bit of the bubbly" (from a bar inside the stadium where the match took place) over Jake Hager's head to take him out of the match.
• Halloween Episode: Kenny celebrated Halloween on the October 30th, 2019 edition of Dynamite by dressing up as Sans.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Japanese pro wrestler Michael Nakazawa, who appeared in Omega's "Cleaner's Corner" YouTube videos. This has carried over to AEW, with Kenny and Nakazawa being shown to be best friends.
• Hijacked by Ganon: The civil war between Kenny and Cody for the leadership of Bullet Club came to an abrupt end when the rest of Bullet Club kicked The Elite out of the group, having grown sick of their egotistical behavior.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks were a prime case of this by the end of 2018. The Bucks caused trouble with Prince Devitt in his last match, helped bring in Omega as a new member during Karl Anderson and AJ Styles' run, then assisted Omega in ousting Styles and convincing Anderson to concede direction to Kenny. This convoluted plot enabled them to quietly take the power of Bullet Club and use it as the personal army for Omega's "Change the World" agenda, with said agenda including the Bucks bringing their indie friends into the Club and its lore through a Ring of Honor expansion. As a consequence of this, however, the biggest internal threats the Club has ever had, in the form of Adam Cole, then Cody Rhodes, were brought in by The Elite themselves, and while they were able to nip Cole in the bud early, they (particularly Kenny) actually poked at Cody and drove him to his treachery and didn't realize it until he was setting them against each other and claiming leadership. Furthermore, the other men they brought in, Marty Scurll and Adam "Hangman" Page, have proven to be very much Wild Card characters in this crisis situation, and the core members of Bullet Club, represented by day-one OG members Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale, became increasingly skeptical about everything involving The Elite. By the time Cody and Kenny finally began to patch up their issues, the Fifita clan members had already hatched a plan to attack Kenny and everyone who sided with him to conclude the G1 Special in San Francisco. Their own machinations to take over Bullet Club smacked them right back in the nose in 2017-2018, ultimately resulting in them losing Bullet Club. Subverted in that they bowed out of Bullet Club gracefully when it became clear they no longer controlled it, walking away with The Elite as a full faction.
• Hypocrite: At the start of his match against Hiroshi Tanahashi for the vacant IWGP Intercontinental Championship, he told fellow Bullet Club members Yujiro Takahashi and Cody Hall that he didn't want them interfering in his match, stating that he was sick of losing star ratings from the Smart Marks because of it and wanted to just fight on his own. Then it turned out The Young Bucks had been hiding under the ring the entire time on his behalf and interfered once things started looking bad for Omega.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: He wears a t-shirt to tag matches and other bouts which he doesn't take seriously. When the shirt is off, run for your life.
• I Lied: Stated in his contract signing interview with NJPW that he would not be joining the Bullet Club. The content of this page tells you how honest he was.
• I Meant to Do That: Played off the failed exploding ring at Revolution as an intentional thing to embarrass Jon Moxley, although with a quite clear implication he's trying to save face.
• Immigrant Patriotism: Kenny Omega loves Japan, took up residence there and didn't even consider himself an outsider.
• Inadequate Inheritor: His return to NJPW in time for Wrestle Kingdom 17 saw Kenny target Will Ospreay, who he viewed as this. In his return address, Kenny called to mind how he viewed Will as one of his successors to his role as the top gaijin in New Japan while he left to form AEW, and specifically took both Will and the United Empire at large to task for the smaller clap-only crowds (despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic).
• It's All About Me: Despite leading a faction, Kenny clearly only cared about himself and The Bucks.
• Large Ham: Fits this to a T. Everything about him, his entrance theme, his attire, his attitude, his facial expressions in the ring and his promos, is larger than life. He also claimed to be the "god" of the junior heavyweight division, and is known to occasionally bust out an "evil laugh". SOMEONE PLAY HIS MUSIC ALREADY.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Omega ended Moxley's undefeated streak in AEW at Winter is Coming 2020 with the help of Don Callis. Fast forward 3 years later, Callis betrayed Omega in his match with Moxley in an episode at Dynamite.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: During Kenny's Undertale entrance on the October 30th, 2019 edition of AEW Dynamite, a silhouette of Kota Ibushi holding the G1 Climax trophy was shown along with a modified version of the famous Lionmark of NJPW as a continuation of the Undertale themed cutscenes made for Omega's Wrestle Kingdom entrance.
• Lightning Bruiser: Omega has enough raw power to conistently put people on his shoulders in order to perform the One Winged Angel, but the guy is also insanely agile and constantly does moves like hurricanranas and flip dives to the outside of the ring and occasionally into the audience).
• Master-Apprentice Chain: The Golden Sheik -> Don Callis -> Kenny Omega -> Riho.
• Metaphorically True: He's not wrong when claiming he and Moxley have a untouched slate when it comes to official 1-on-1 encounters. Although we certainly know it happened from watching their Lights Out war at Full Gear 2019^note ...which Moxley won, AEW and Tony Khan don't recognize it as such since it was deemed an unsanctioned match and thus didn't affect either man's official win-loss record.
• Mistaken for Racist: During a June 2018 interview, Omega stated that foreign wrestlers in New Japan were "hungrier and worked harder" than the native talent. Two fans misconstrued this and declared Omega a racist despite his being pro wrestling's greatest Occidental Otaku and the numerous examples that many hardcore NJPW fans of both Japanese and Western origins have noted to back up what he's saying.
• Multinational Team: Bullet Club under Kenny's leadership included wrestlers from Austrailia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Tonga, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• The Napoleon: Michael Elgin didn't use the exact term, but made it clear he wasn't too impressed with Omega's attempts to graduate from the rank of junior to heavyweight.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If any part of Kenny Omega and The Elite's plan in kayfabe was to actually transform the identity of Bullet Club into their vision over a long period of time, Kenny and Cody themselves not only completely ruined it, they achieved the exact opposite through their own actions. Namely their petty bickering with each other over leadership while at the same time both constantly deemphasizing their loyalty to Bullet Club as a whole behind the scenes. Not only were these things the main source of ire that sparked the Fifita clan's decision to mutiny, they also provided the perfect opening for Jay White to capitalize, with Kenny's invitation to White to join BC under his leadership resulting directly in White's capture of Omega's IWGP United States Championship. Which then led to The Elite's leadership issues only getting worse, the Tongans being able to consolidate the force of BCOG in the background, and White swimming into a burial of Hangman Page before moving on to disrupt CHAOS from the inside. All of which culminated in The Elite being effectively kicked out of Bullet Club in San Francisco (even though they put up an empty fight to keep the name for a few months) and then Switchblade defecting from CHAOS at King of Pro Wrestling to become The Club's new top ace and taking CHAOS's legendary managers with him. With Jay White, The Guerrillas of Destiny, Taiji Ishimori, and El Phantasmo having all captured IWGP titles for a unified heel BC since then, and Tama Tonga even organizing the first ever Bullet Club Block Party and promising more to come, it's safe to say that the strong and Machiavellian identity of Bullet Club is back with a vengeance.
• Occidental Otaku: He’s a huge video game fan and his finishing moves (see above) and his theme music (first the official 20th Anniversary rock remix of Dr. Wily’s theme from Mega Man 2, then a Final Fantasy-inspired number called "Devil's Sky") reflect this. He learned how to speak Japanese because he wanted to know how the manga series Hajime no Ippo ended.
• One-Hit Kill: The One-Winged Angel itself. While many an opponent has managed to escape from its setup, nobody sans Kota Ibushi has ever managed to kick out of it in his entire professional wrestling career, making it this for all intents and purposes.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: In his "Devil's Sky" entrance theme.
• Overly Long Gag: Part of Kenny's return to singles action in 2020 following the dissolution of his partnership with Hangman has included Justin Roberts rattling off a slew of Kenny's Real Life personal and in-ring accomplishments, ending with a reference to North Carolina.
• The Peter Principle: He skirts the edge of this. Kenny Omega is widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the world right now, but the response to his work as an executive and booker with All Elite Wrestling has been predominately mixed to negative. Omega is apparently the main creative driving force behind AEW's women's division, which is generally considered their weak point and inferior to the NXT women’s division, which some view as possibly WWE's best product overall. His less than graceful responses to criticism also haven't helped.
  • To be fair to him, Omega's booking is less to do with Russo or Nash-style arrogance and incompetence, and more to do with being handicapped by numerous factors outside his control, such as the fact that WWE has been aggressively recruiting the best female talent in North America and around the world for years, NXT has had a tremendous reputation in turning that female talent into main roster superstars, and the joshi stars he had originally hoped to build around and knows best, while deserving and well-received, have commitments in Japan, which limit the dates they are available for AEW. The COVID-19 Pandemic hitting the wrestling industry particularly hard in 2020 didn't help either, as not only did AEW lose access to every single joshi they had except champion Hikaru Shida, but also most of their British talent like Bea Priestly and Sadie Gibbs, who had to be released by AEW after being unable to reach America for five months. And then just to REALLY put the boot in, top stars Dr. Britt Baker and Kris Statlander were both sidelined with injuries, although Britt at least was able to put in some sterling out-of-ring promo work from her wheelchair.
• Power Stable: Bullet Club, The Elite.
• Power Trio: Omega and the Young Bucks formed a sub-unit within the Bullet Club, "The Elite", after AJ Styles's ouster.
• Product Placement: He's worn Young Bucks merchandise as entrance attire.
• Put on a Bus: Wasn't seen in ROH between Death Before Dishonor VIII all the way up to Honor Rising Japan. A six year absence for a man who was a top contender for the world title, off a loss to Christopher Daniels.
• Psycho for Hire: Bullet Club brought him in as a mercenary ace to fill their junior division vacancy left by Prince Devitt. The new heel role combined with his Funny Foreigner personality translated into this. Not surprisingly, he became Bullet Club's first-ever true Bastard Understudy, as well.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He wears frilly pink and white tights whenever he teams up with Riho.
• Red Baron: Currently, "The Cleaner", " The Best Bout Machine" and "The Belt Collector". Previously, he's been called things like "Canadian X", "The Destiny Flower", "King of the Anywhere Match", "The Master of the Dark Hadou", and "The Cornerstone".
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The composed and calculated Blue to Jon Moxley's emotional Red whenever they faced off.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The Elite are this to Bullet Club.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Following he and Adam Page losing the AEW World Tag Team Championship to FTR at All Out 2020, Kenny stormed out of the arena, loudly proclaiming that he was done tagging with Hangman.
  • After he cheated to beat Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship at Winter is Coming, Kenny and Don Callis booked it out of the arena, not waiting to see what'd happen when Moxley came to.
• Shadow Archetype:
  • Became this to all the other Bullet Club leaders, especially original leader Prince Devitt. All cocky and ambitious, all want money and championships, all talented enough to be successful on their own yet perfectly willing to flout puroresu tradition and use the help of their club mates when they have to in order to take it over the top. Yet where Devitt, Styles and Anderson valued all of their teammates and treated Bullet Club like a family, Kenny is flagrantly in love with himself and only considers The Young Bucks to be of any substantial importance, as seen by how quickly the three would adopt the "Elite" tag for themselves once they got rid of Styles. While he does still have some loyalty for Bullet Club itself, he would often leave the "heart of the team" stuff to the Bucks; however, even they became less focused on the Club as a whole and more about Being the Elite, leaving the NJPW-based Bullet Club members in the lurch. Furthermore, even with the Being the Elite crew, he spent all of 2017 having a bubbling feud with one member, first with Adam Cole (which was pre-empted with his leaving for WWE), then with Cody Rhodes which continued until July 7, 2018 when Kenny and Cody ended their feud with one last match.
  • This did not go unnoticed, either. When fellow Bullet Club member Tama Tonga faced off against Omega during their match in the 27th G1 Climax, he called his leader out on focusing too much on the Elite rather than representing Bullet Club as a whole. Although both showed due respect to each other afterwards, the issues are clearly there. At New Year's Dash 2018, Kenny first stopped Cody from leading an assault on Kota Ibushi, then offered Jay White a BC membership only to eat the mat; in the press interviews, Cody stressed the notion that Omega merely saw him as a subject to his own godhood, while Tama mocked Omega's miserable recruitment failure. Playing into both their sentiments, White accused Omega of only trying to invite him into the Club to turn a potential threat into a complacent thrall, and would join CHAOS the next day with Bullet Club's leader in his sights; his continued targeting of Bullet Club afterward focused exclusively on members tied to Kenny and/or Cody in the Being the Elite troupe. Finally, the night of Kenny's final match with Cody would end not with that match, but with Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa and King Haku turning against Kenny and pretty much all the Bullet Club members who supported him, before declaring themselves Bullet Club Firing Squad aka the REAL Bullet Club. NJPW refers to them as Bullet Club OG, while the pro-Omega group call themselves Bullet Club Elite. Ironically, after a few months and some key victories over Omega's teammates, the Tongans and their supporters restocked their vision of Bullet Club with White defecting from CHAOS to take the helm of BC, bringing the enemy stable's longtime managers Gedo and Jado with him in the process — at which point The Elite gave up the Bullet Club name.
• Shout-Out: He's a WALKING homage to Japanese video gaming culture with another reference or two thrown in.
  • His name, in itself, is a reference to the Omega Weapon from Final Fantasy VI.
  • As his typical fun-loving face persona he would come out to the Capcom official Rockman 20th Anniversary remix of Dr. Wily's theme from Mega Man 2. His official Twitter handle is a none-too-subtle reference to his favorite game, Mega Man X.
  • Has had several moves in his arsenal that were named after Japanese video game concepts, including a step-up enzuigiri called Flash Man's Time Stopper (another MM2 reference), a running double knee named after martial arts film legend Tony Jaa, and the actual Street Fighter HADOUKEN!! done as a palm strike. One of his finishing moves is called Aoi Shoudou, which is literally Japanese for "Blue Impulse", the same name as a popular Japan Air Force demonstration team that's been shouted out in anime as well as given their own video game.
  • The villainous Cleaner character is a powerhungry psycho with an almost entirely black outfit that includes a leather jacket and aviator-style sunglasses along with his wrestling gear. The only color other than black that he wears is white, and he also has unmistakable stylized gray^note or in his case gray-dyed blonde hair. His stage screen graphic will often feature PlayStation 2-graphic-style fire burning behind a picture of him. His theme song, called "Devil's Sky", sounds like it belongs on a final boss or pivotal mid-boss character of an epic Eastern RPG. Oh, and his finisher is called the One-Winged Angel. Now where have we heard and seen all of that before? Then there's the late addition of the Bom…erm, V-Trigger to his arsenal.
  • Wrestle Kingdom 10 saw him mimic the entrance of The Terminator with an appropriately-remixed version of his theme playing in the background. Since then, he's copied the same thing for the occasional set of matches where the crowd claps along to the Terminator theme before he launches himself over the top rope. For Wrestle Kingdom 11, his pre-match video intro saw him copy the scene where the T-800 attacks a bunch of thugs for their clothes, with the ending showing Omega's eyes glowing red before putting on a pair of shades. His walk to the ring was done with the same remix he came out to in the previous year, now wearing a half-mask of a T-800, a biker jacket and hoisting around a sawed-off shotgun.
  • His entrance for Wrestle Kingdom 13 saw him enter the ring to Hopes and Dreams, dressed as Kris, backed by a custom video depicting an Undertale-style battle between him and Tanahashi made by developer Toby Fox himself.
  • For an episode of AEW Dynamite, he went for another Undertale reference, with a video package in the style of the game’s cutscenes detailing his struggles over the months beforehand, having his entrance music replaced with Meglovania, and coming out dressed as Sans.
  • The references to North Carolina that began appearing in Kenny's pre-match introductions following his heel turn in AEW are a shout-out to Michael Jordan's pre-game introductions with the Chicago Bulls (he played college basketball at the University of North Carolina).
  • Wrestle Kingdom 17 saw his homages and love for FFVII reach its peak, with Kenny not coming out to either "Battle Cry" or "Devil's Sky"... but to "One-Winged Angel" itself while cosplaying as Sephiroth.
  • At Double or Nothing 2023, Omega emulates Captain America by wielding a trash can lid much like how Steve Rogers would hold his shield, even using the Charging Star twice. Hilariously, as pointed out by the commentators, Omega's outfit in that match is an inspiration to Cap, with the star being replaced with an Omega symbol and the Canadian maple leaf.
• Signature Move: "V-Trigger" (Running bicycle knee strike based loosely on Shinsuke Nakamura's Boma Ye), "Kotaro Krusher" (Leaping one-handed bulldog), Snap Dragon Suplex, "Rise of the Terminator" (Suicide somersault senton), "You Can't Escape" (Finlay Roll/Middle-Rope Moonsault combo).
• Sinister Shades: Part of his heel look after his turn into "The Cleaner."
• Smug Super: Even outside of kayfabe (or at least in semi-kayfabe), he pretty much admits he knows how much better he is than everyone else. From his January 2017 interview with Sports Illustrated, which is already infamous for calling out the entire WWE roster save for AJ Styles (as well as top guys in other major companies) on being complacent and happy with their position while he's putting on top quality matches, pushing the envelope, and trying to be a visionary for wrestling, comes this telling little line:
  Kenny Omega: That’s not just me saying that because I’m a cocky prick.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: While Omega is widely respected by most of the wrestling business, Jim Cornette's almost visceral hatred of him is likely only exceeded by his hatred of Vince Russo...and even that's debatable.
• Start My Own: After a long stint in ROH, NJPW and the Indies, Kenny started his own promotion - AEW.
• Surfer Dude: Omega's original gimmick when he was with Top Rope Championship Wrestling (TCW).
• Tag Team: With Mentallo and Rawskillz at PCW, with Kota Ibushi as Golden☆Lovers in DDT, and more recently with The Young Bucks. He forms the Bullet Club's Luxury Trio when paired alongside Cody Rhodes and Marty Scurll. He began teaming with Adam Page on a regular basis in late 2019 with them even winning the AEW Tag Titles together.In 2023, he began to team with his former rival Chris Jericho as The Golden Jets.
• Take That!:
  • Crossing into Badass Boast; at NJPW Invasion Attack 2016, called out people who wasted their time on a certain wrestling promotion's massive annual event, claiming that he was going to show them what they should have been watching all along. The week before, WWE held WrestleMania 32, which received mixed-to-negative reviews and was ultimately voted "Worst Major Wrestling Show" of the year by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
  • After trying to convince Brandi Rhodes to throw in the towel during her husband (and Omega's Bullet Club stablemate) Cody's IWGP Heavyweight Championship match against Kazuchika Okada in the Los Angeles G1 Special in USA (itself a Take That! for the fact that Cody tried to do so out of concern for Omega during his second IWGP title shot at Okada at Dominion a month earlier), the two had a confrontation during the press conference in which Cody questioned Kenny's actions, with this exchange (minus all the "we don't need to have this discussion out here" stuff):
    Cody: You were going over 60 minutes!
    Omega: Look, I thought you were done. You don't have the experience to work 60 minutes. You don't have the experience in main event matches. You, you lucked into this match!
    Cody: What do you know about my experience!? Just because I come from fuckin' WWE, and I left!?
    Omega: That's exactly why!
  • He's thrown several jabs at Jim Cornette and Cornette's fanbase on social media in return for the abuse Cornette has hurled at him. Cornette, of course, always hits right back.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Kenny Omega's relationships with both Adam Cole and Cody Rhodes, members who The Elite themselves had brought into Bullet Club, gradually deteriorated into this before ultimately dissolving. In Cody's case it was repaired after that, but it was too little too late, as they and all of their Elite teammates were soon kicked out of Bullet Club.
  • Kenny Omega's tag team with Adam Page was this in a nutshell. They clearly didn't view themselves as a tag team or even as friends a lot of the time but because they were holding the AEW World Tag Team Championship. they were forced to hold it together.
• Technician vs. Performer: Highlighted pretty well in his feud with Jon Moxley. With Moxley as the emotionally charged passion driven Performer who is consistently seen as Omega's superior on the mic bringing more eyes to the product. And Omega as the universally acclaimed wrestling savant Technician considered better in ring-wise than Moxley.
  • In his feud with Kazuchika Okada, meanwhile, Kenny falls into the role of the Performer to Okada's Technician. While both are technically brilliant wrestlers, Okada had always been characterized by a efficient, minimalistic wrestling style based around doing a select number of moves perfectly at the exact right moment, while Kenny's trademark during this time was taking every move from his opponents playbook and throwing them out with reckless abandon in an attempt to see what would stick. Their personas also highlighted this, as Okada's was always as and a cucumber and perfectly in control of his emotions, while Kenny, for lack of a better description, would at times descend into full blown anime villain territory in how over the top his presentation could get, with his histrionics often times costing matches due to his need to showboat.
• The Bus Came Back: He made his return to DDT after five years away at Ultimate Party 2019.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: He and the Young Bucks' excommunication of AJ Styles at the start of 2016 consisted of several double and triple superkicks in addition to Omega hitting AJ with his own Styles Clash.
• They Were Holding You Back: Not-so-subtly infers that he himself felt this way about Page during the latter's singles matches following their tag title loss, as those matches were all originally tag matches with Omega, but Kenny would bow out of them without much of a given reason.
  • He more or less admits over the next few weeks that he was glad to have lost the tag titles so he could refocus on his singles career and show everyone that "The Cleaner" and "The Best Bout Machine" never truly went away, particularly after upending Page in the World Title Eliminator tourney to get a shot at Moxley and the AEW World Title.
• Token Good Teammate: In mid-2017, he became something of this as the leader of the Bullet Club to the point that several other members are increasingly questioning his motives and losing respect for him. This is not due to any inherent goodness on his part, but rather his big-match reputation and ambitions to be revered as a wrestling god preceding him to the point he focuses solely on that and doesn't personally engage in pro-Club villainy anymore. For this, he along with the rest of The Elite and their cohorts ultimately were exiled from Bullet Club by Tama Tonga and his allies, a condition which they seemed to challenge for a few months before conceding.
• Tournament Arc: Became the first non-Japanese winner of NJPW's G1 Climax tournament in 2016 by defeating Hirooki Goto, ensuring his shot against IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11. One of Styles and Devitt's first photos together ever posted was a Tweet of congratulations to Kenny.
  • In 2017, he won a massive single-elimination tournament to become the first-ever IWGP US Heavyweight Champion in Long Beach, marking a great stride towards New Japan's growing internation expansion.
  • In 2020, he won another single elimination tournament, this time to determine the numer one contender for the AEW World Championship.
• Trash Talk: Since becoming "The Cleaner" he's transitioned from normal wrestling sports based trash talk to the insane ramblings of an anime or video game villain. Along with Breaking the Fourth Wall.
  Kenny Omega: [upon grabbing somebody in a hold] You can't escape!
• Troll: His style of fighting as a member of the Bullet Club can count as this. Seating his opponent on a trolley, putting a garbage can over said opponent's head, and pushing the trolley into a high-speed superkick is within the realm of possibilities.
• Tyke Bomb: Kenny was mentored by Don Callis from the age of ten to serve in Callis' plot to take over the wrestling business.
• Villain of Another Story: One of the top babyfaces in AEW, but as soon as he goes south of the border to AAA, where he's the reigning Mega Champion, he turns back into the real-life anime villain we all knew and loved in New Japan. Trope since averted now that he's turned heel in AEW as well.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Kenny, despite playing a heel for the majority of his NJPW run, was very popular with both Western and Japanese fans.
• Visionary Villain: He actually had some noble goals - he intended to push for New Japan's success internationally, although in doing so displayed a complete lack of respect for the promotion's traditions. The final video which showed before his match at Wrestle Kingdom 11 showed that both him and Okada had the same goals, and they wanted to be the figurehead of that revolution.
• Visual Pun: As part of his "The Cleaner" persona, will occasionally enter the ring carrying a broom (whose name is Kenny BroomMega). Word of God stated that when the "Cleaner" moniker was first pitched, the folks behind New Japan initially thought that Kenny was going to perform as a janitor, as opposed to "cleaner" being a term for hitmen used in Western criminal organizations. The final product had ideas of both.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Hangman Page. Despite the constant bickering and Kenny stating that they barely even count as friends in the lead-up to Fyter Fest 2020, the two have become a great tag team and have shared a few heartfelt moments together (such as having a drink together during Stadium Stampede and Kenny bailing on The Bucks so he can spend time with Hangman).
• We ARE Struggling Together: The only thing that keeps The Elite from ruling supreme is their fallibility to internal bickering and conflict. Despite being the cream of the crop of wrestling, their egos tend to get in the way.
• We Can Rule Together: Kenny offered this to Jay White in 2018.
• Wham Line: After Kenny defeated Jon Moxley for the World Championship then immediately booked it for the back with Don Callis:
  Alex Marvez: Guys, what did you do, what's going-what's going on here?!
  Don Callis: You'll find out this Tuesday night!
  Marvez: "Tuesday"?! Dynamite's on Wednesday!
  Callis: This Tuesday, Impact Wrestling on AXS TV!
• Wild Card: Kenny's been a face, a heel and everything in-between.
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Has wrestled a blow-up doll. And a nine year-old girl named Haruka.
• Worthy Opponent: Admitted in the post-Wrestle Kingdom 11 press conference that Kazuchika Okada was the best wrestler in Japan, and possibly the world. On his end, Okada praised him as the best foreign wrestler in New Japan's history. Further cemented at the end of the first night of the G1 Special in USA. Kenny gave Okada the spotlight, but not before saying he was going to win their match against each other in the G1 Climax.
• Would Hit a Girl: And a child at that, once again referring to his match with Haruka. Although there was plenty of precedent in this case. Kenny was the "Summer Vacation" antagonist during the World Wonder Ring STARDOM "Kid's Fight" series.
• Wrestling Family: Kenny's uncle was The Golden Sheik, a legend of Winnipeg wrestling who trained and mentored Don Callis.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The Elite recieved a legitimate Cease and Desist order from WWE over their use of the "Too Sweet" gesture. This led to the creation of the "One Sweet".
• Years Too Early: Claimed this about the late-January challenger to his United States Championship, "Switchblade" Jay White, just weeks after trying to induct White into the Bullet Club only get a Blade Runner for his troubles. When they fought at Sapporo, White promptly proved Omega was Tempting Fate.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kenny Omega's argument for betraying AJ Styles and ousting him from the Club, usurping the leadership in the process at New Year's Dash 2016. Omega states that Styles had failed time and time again in big title matches and that he was therefore fired from the Bullet Club. This marks the first time anyone has been outright kicked out of the Club. The second one involved Adam Cole.

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