Kenny-Omega.com

June 1st: New Japan’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament begins, with Omega facing – and defeating – Koji Kanemoto. Kenny would stay in the grueling tournament a total of nine days, both as a singles competitor and with Ibushi in tag team matches. Ibushi was in the first day’s tournament as well, facing La Sombra.

June 2nd, Kenny’s opponent the next day of the tournament was Fujita Hayato.

He does not do as well as he did on day one of the tournament, losing to Hayato.

Here is commentary from a wrestling blogger at the show:

The match had been highly anticipated when it became the main event, and it lived up to those expectations. Needless to say, this was the best bout of the day. In the beginning, Kenny was a little rough, and his own moves drove him into a corner, but Kenny, who could not make up his mind, was gradually drawn into Hayato’s territory, and in the end, Hayato won the match after a fierce exchange of blows. Hayato was a little bit more concerned about his knees than usual, but he was able to withstand Kenny’s powerful attacks and pull himself together to win the match. In the beginning, many people cheered for Kenny, but it was impressive to see the audience cheering and clapping for Hayato the moment he won.

griffon591

June 4th Ibushi and Kenny were both able to beat their respective opponents (Kenny facing Ryusuke Taguchi and Ibushi opposing KUSHIDA) and celebrated at the end of the day by eating cheesecake together in the Chiba Port Arena.

June 6th, Kenny’s opponent for the BOSJ is none other than his future Bullet Club friend, Tama Tonga. Here are a few match spots that are kind of fun:

After Kenny defeats Tonga, he proceeds on to face Nobuo Yoshihashi for tournament day seven in Tokyo.

Ibushi gets acupuncture to treat his wrestling injuries and insomnia, then June 12th the Lovers hang with Nakazawa, who provides an update on how the two Lovers are feeling during the tournament. He states, “I heard that Ibushi had a cold, but he took some nutritional drinks and managed to make it to the semifinals. I’m glad he got his revenge on Davey! Third time’s the charm?” He claims a very exhausted Kenny was happy that Ibushi made it to the tournament semifinals, even though he didn’t, and he would be cheering for him as he continues on to future matches in the tournament.

June 13 at DDT What Are You Doing? the Golden Lovers face Mr. 6 and his partner Riho. Adorableness ensues. Riho and Omega had first interacted the year prior in a mixed tag team match, however I unfortunately don’t have any footage of this. This time around, Ibushi and Omega would get their asses kicked by some ten year olds.

The Golden Lovers had two other matches that night. They were both mixed indie matches, one of which Kenny won with a Hadouken 2 minutes in.

The other was against Bull Armor Takuya and Dora Sportivo. A narration of that match can be found in its entirety HERE.

They lose another two minute match, when Ibushi has a mask put on his head and gets pinned.

Time for Kenny to head back to Canada. His performance at NJPW got great reviews by execs at New Japan and he was expected to be invited back for future tournaments.

Poor Ibushi somehow winds up with a dislocated shoulder. This is the second time he’s had this injury in a short period of time, and so the strain on the joint was a little more serious the second time around. He has to refrain from wrestling for about a month and rest it.

June 18th Omega defeats Austin Aries at ROH’s Buffalo Stampede II, in Hamburg, NY.

The next day he’s booked for ROH’s Death Before Dishonor VIII in Toronto, where he is defeated by Christopher Daniels, a future fellow employee of AEW.

Here’s the poster for the show. It appears to be a really fun lineup!