Kenny Omega Reveals His Reaction To Botched Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch Finish

It’s been nearly two years since Kenny Omega defeated Jon Moxley in AEW’s first-ever Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch at Revolution 2021, but the match has only grown in infamy due to the botched angle at the end of the bout.

A fault with the pyrotechnics saw the ring explosion turn into little more than several sparklers and some smoky bangs, turning what was a decent hard-hitting deathmatch into nothing more than a whimpering laughing stock.

In a recent appearance on Renee Paquette’s The Sessions, Kenny Omega reflected on the ending to the match, saying the following:

“The big one that always comes to mind, the forefront of my brain is of course the Barbed Wire Death Match, the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match,” said Omega when talking about matches that didn’t turn out how he’d envisioned. “I was so proud of the match, I was so worried about the match because I’m not really like a hardcore guy. I’m the guy that’s scared of needles… When I’m in the heat of the moment, things happen so I just deal with it. When I’m getting thrown into barbed wire and things like that in the heat of the moment, sure, but going into a match knowing that this might happen and this might happen and this might happen and I’m thinking worst-case scenario like wow, that could catch on fire or you know, I could smear my face off or whatever, I could get completely shredded by barbed wire if I get completely tangled in it. I was scared of stuff like that. But, the one thing that I never thought would happen and I should’ve considered it was what if all this stuff that they have prepared, that they have done rehearsals for, that I know they’ve done rehearsals for, what if for some reason on the day of, that doesn’t work? It never popped into my mind, that feeling, that thought. You just think that the stuff that you can’t control is gonna be there for you, you know what I mean? I’m trying to worry about what can I do to control the unknown? The thing I can’t control, any sort of technical aspect of the match, I can’t do that so I’m just trusting that all of these people that have the know-how and have been tasked to do this can pull it off.

“I was giving the entire situation the benefit of the doubt because it was a super windy day, it was a very windy day and the way that the wind traveled through that kind of half-open arena, I thought, maybe this place has been so wind-tunnelled up that something had caused this to not fire the way that it should. I was kind of hoping that that’s what it was, but it was just kind of like when I heard the real reason, where it was like, the boss who was not there from full rehearsals had then showed up to the actual real-life show and he had said, ‘I’ve got a way to make this look even better’ and that was his idea. I was like, ‘Wait, you decided on the spot? When you didn’t know the idea, you didn’t see the rehearsal and that’s the direction you decided to go in?’ And yes, there were misfires within his new idea that he decided but, I wish we just would have done what we practiced.

“I remember walking to the back and I didn’t want to show any sort of emotion one way or another. Whatever it was that I was going to do, I was just gonna do it away from people, maybe in front of The Bucks, maybe in front of people that have seen me at my worst before. I was gonna do it in front of them and I was gonna come back out and be like, oh! Wasn’t that great everyone? (he laughed) So, I remember being on my way to the back and I saw Jerry (Lynn). He kind of sprinted up beside me and he’s like, ‘Kenny, don’t do it man. I know you’re p***** off but don’t do it.’ I’m like, ‘Jerry, I don’t even know what I’m gonna do. I just feel like crying man’ but he’s like, ‘No, it’s okay, it’s okay. Nothing you did wrong, nothing you did wrong. I’m p***** off too but, hopefully you don’t blame anyone involved in the match.’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t.’ That was kind of the most upsetting part is at that moment, I don’t know who to blame, I don’t know who’s to fault. I just feel so terrible for Jon (Moxley), for Eddie (Kingston), I even felt sorry for myself. I’m like, man, boy did we look like sorry saps. It was nice to just sort of, as best as I could, just scrub the finish and okay, how did our day’s work look aside from that one technical flub? I was like, you know what? I really liked it, I really did it and it sucks that-that last part is what’s gonna stick in everyone’s mind but it just reinforces that everything that we do as performers, as artists, don’t ever say, hey Kenny, you had this incredible match, you had the greatest match of all time. Let’s say you really think that. I was just a part of it. I had an opponent, I had a great crowd, I had a great ring, I had probably a good entrance, my opponent had a good entrance, the referee was probably there sawing the counts. It’s such a team effort and if one of those things goes sideways, then kind of the whole experience gets — it suffers as a result of it.

“We were kind of able to pivot away from it and make it into something else which was, in its own right, ridiculous. Like, ‘Hey, I wanted you to think that you were gonna get blown up and burned alive but I’m not a murderer.’ I guess that makes sense, yeah. If I blew something up for real, that’s not good… It made me want to rely on as little people as possible moving forward and I remember too, that-that was always my thought process going into sports, even throughout high school. I was really good at ice hockey, I loved ice hockey. But what did I play? I was a goaltender.”

To date, AEW have only ever ran one Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch.

H/T: POST Wrestling