10 Things You Need To Know About Kenny Omega

9. Kenny Omega Was Originally A Hawaiian Surfer

Kenny Omeha Hadouken
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Omega's love of video games is well known, so it will come as no surprise that his wrestling name came straight out of a video game. The Omega Weapon was a superboss in the game Final Fantasy VIII, and this combined with omega meaning 'the end' made it a simple choice for a young wrestler looking for a name. As for Kenny? Who knows, but it certainly does slip off the tongue.

Omega's first gimmick had nothing to do with video games however. Omega was packaged as a surfer dude, a gimmick that immediately proved problematic as he had no experience of surfing and Winnipeg wasn't exactly overflowing with young men looking for waves.

With his love for professional wrestling waning, Omega went back to the drawing board. Rather than continuing as a surfer doing moves stolen from his peers, he decided to take more and more influence from the video game characters he knew and loved, and Omega's passion was reinvigorated in the process.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.