Kenny Omega wants fans to move on from Brawl Out and the CM Punk/Elite beef

With the return of The Elite at Full Gear last weekend, we’re starting to her more from some of the principles involved in the All Out media scrum and subsequent backstage altercation between CM Punk & Ace Steel and Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks.

AEW owner/president/head of creative Tony Khan answered a few questions about it on the media call before the Nov. 19 PPV, and at the scrum that followed that show in New Jersey. Matt & Nick Jackson used the first Being The Elite since Labor Day to comment on the time they’ve been off television as a result of the company’s investigation into “Brawl Out”.

Now, Omega has gone on the record in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso.

Like Khan & The Bucks, Kenny mostly says that he can’t say much. Instead of details, he asks that we put that drama in our collective rearview and focus on AEW’s present, and future:

“There are things no one can talk about, so I’d encourage people to let it go. It doesn’t change that we want a team effort in AEW. I don’t even mean implicitly myself and my opponent. It also means the referee, the fans, the people who set up the ring, everyone–even a technical error can ruin the memory of a match. I can refer back to the exploding barbed wire death match. So I encourage people to move away from it because there is no information to be released. Though I cannot talk about it, I do want the fans to know I still want the best for pro wrestling.”

The former AEW World, Tag and Trios champ talks a lot about wrestling as art in a way that will undoubtedly annoy his critics. But he’s doing what he can to get the wrestling to not view everything The Elite and the company do through the lens of what happened Sept. 4-5 in Chicagoland.

“The day after the pay-per-view, I was absolutely devastated by the loss of Jason David Frank [the Power Rangers actor and pop culture figure who died over the weekend]. He’s one of my childhood heroes. That evening, there was a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club where five people died. It’s absolutely terrible. After such tragedy, it puts everything in perspective.

“This isn’t Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks against CM Punk. It is people trying to show off their craft. You can boo Kenny Omega, or the Young Bucks, or CM Punk, but I hope people don’t forget we’re human beings struggling to show our art.”

The crowd in Newark last Saturday mostly did that, after they got some jeers for Punk out of their system. Will the crowd in Punk’s hometown do the same once The Elite’s second match of a best-of-seven Trios title series with Death Triangle kicks into gear tonight (Nov. 23)? Kenny didn’t specifically talk about this week’s Dynamite, but he seems optimistic about moving forward in general:

“There is a bond, a connection with fans that is unbreakable. We all felt that on Saturday. And we still have a lot of goals to show the possibilities of wrestling. We’re excited to do that with our fans.”

Let us know what you think, and check out SI’s interview with Omega — which also covers how he used his time off to train & continue to rehab the injuries which caused him to miss most of this year, his upcoming return to New Japan, the Fight Forever video game, and more — here.