Kenny Omega Says Cartoons Influenced His Wrestling Style

Former AEW World Champion Kenny Omega has explained how cartoons have had an impact on his wrestling style and how he tries to draw inspiration from them.

Some wrestlers study tapes of former stars and old promotions as they look to improve their in-ring prowess but Kenny Omega has found inspiration for his own style from the world of cartoons.

Speaking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Kenny Omega explained how Batman specifically speaks to him and his own particular flavour of wrestling:

“So I was getting matches around 18 minutes to 25ish. And then for the big ones, you know, that’s anywhere from 30 to 50 to an hour, but the main ones are like 20ish. So I thought how can I study for this? How can I improve myself? Can I take nods from anything around me? And I began to study weekly cartoons, specifically superhero cartoons. Because an episode lasts about 21 minutes long, there’s a beginning, there’s a middle there’s an end.

“The hero gets put into peril at some point. And every week, there’s probably a new villain featured. And every week, for example, Batman cannot fight The Joker every week. It’s not always going to be that serious. There’s not always going to be that ‘oh my goodness, the world may end the moment.’ Sometimes he’s just to fight the Riddler, sometimes it’s the fight with you know Mr. Freeze or Clayface, how do you make all those instances?

“How do you make all of those altercations interesting? How do you make them feel like they mean something? And how do you make them different from one another, and sometimes you can elicit other emotions, even though, you know, you are supposed to be taken as this incredible superhero, someone that’s larger than life, someone who is supposed to be one of the best at doing what you do. So I had found that specifically Batman cartoons, Justice League, yeah, they really helped a lot.”

During the conversation, Kenny Omega also broke his silence on the backstage fight that took place involving CM Punk following All Out in September 2022.

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