Why Kenny Omega Is NOT The 2021 Wrestler Of The Year

A tremendous long term angle obscured by a merely-very-good short term one, Omega's temporary departure left a world of narrative avenues to explore while he recuperated, and even more for when he returned. But exactly how much will AEW really miss Kenny Omega while he's away?

Wrestling's fickle and unfair, so the answer is "not that much". Or, generously, not enough. And it could be argued that this is why he's not the wrestler of the year. "Argued" being the operative word of course, because plenty of people would, and they'd be armed with the closest we've got to objective measures in an otherwise-subjective game.

Dave Meltzer certainly hadn't lost any faith in the former AEW Champion's abilities. In his post-Full Gear edition of The Wrestling Observer, he rated Omega's loss to Hangman Page at *****½, but this scanned as one of the more generous ratings in his newsletter's history when matched against the overall consensus views of the contest.

Just about everybody enjoyed basking in Page's glory, and that moment wouldn't have meant half as much without 'The Best Bout Machine' putting forth another tremendous effort after two long years of carefully-plotted twists and turns. But Meltzer was an outlier in daring to include it as a pretender to the Omega/Kazuchika Okada throne.

The legendary story ended not with similar euphoric glory, but of pleasing satisfaction. Some went as far as to imply this was an indictment on the leader of The Elite's divisive leanings on comedy while carrying the World Heavyweight Championship. "Funny ain't money" is more dated a take than ever considering how far AEW has come from the DNA of Being The Elite and three of Omega's defences have drawn the company's three highest buyrates, but what is it about the last eleven months that ever-so-slightly undermined the magic of those last three seconds?

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