POP! New Japan Pro-Wrestling – Kenny Omega

Jim Cornette has previously noted that he would prefer wrestling to go back to its territory days, but I feel like he doesn’t understand that it already has – just on a far bigger scale than anyone could have anticipated. Thanks to the internet and the rise of streaming, WWE no longer has a monopoly over wrestling product in a given market. Sure, they’re far and away the most dominant company, but there are viable alternatives in a way that simply didn’t exist when I was a teenager growing up in suburban NSW.

New Japan Pro-Wrestling (or Shin Nihon Puroresu if you want to be that person) are one of the biggest alternatives out there. In operation since the early 70s, a number of WWE stars past and present have actually spent some of their formative years with them – Finn Bálor, Tommaso Ciampa, Daniel Bryan, A.J. Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, to name just a few of the current crop. Yet they’re far more than a simple feeder organisation; for fans who love wrestling as an entertainment form but are burnt out on the WWE’s oft-simplistic approach, they offer something genuinely different. And if you pay close attention, you might see a few wrestling trends take hold before they’re exported to the world.  

Today we’re talking about one of NJPW’s current biggest stars – Kenny Omega. Love him or hate him, Omega has helped establish a model of success for a wrestler outside of the WWE. Admired worldwide for his distinctive look, clever character work and athleticism in the ring, he’s achieved a level of mainstream recognition that would once have been unthinkable for a non-WWE star. There are many others more qualified than me to give you a career overview, but his Wikipedia page is a good a place as any to start with.

In years past, this might have meant that he got an action figure. But in 2018, it means that he’s one of the first NJPW wrestlers to be transformed into a POP. However, he’s not the first. While Kenny’s box is marked as “1”, the Young Bucks 2-pack actually beat him to the shelves several months ago.

I guess the pose is meant to be a rough approximation of his in-ring gun pose, while not being totally overt. It works well enough, and it helps him stand out on the shelf among my host of other wrestling POPs. The outfit is a good look too; I can find a photo of Kenny in this outfit, but I’m not actually familiar enough with his wider career to pinpoint when this was. If you know, feel free to sound off in the comments. Last but not least, given that his distinctive curly hair wouldn’t necessarily translate well to the POP format, I think Funko have hit a good compromise with this braided look.

It’s not perfect, of course. There are some points where the paintwork could be a little better – particularly around the hairline – and the gluing could be a little less obvious, but it’s easily on-par with any of the WWE figures. My main complaint is more to do with scale.

While POPs have never been the benchmark for scale accuracy, Kenny appears to be slightly smaller than his fellow wrestling brethren. Kenny is billed as around 6’ in real life, while Finn Bálor is billed as slightly shorter – but would you guess that to look at this picture?

Granted, some of this is likely due to the initial waves of WWE POPs being released during a period when the style was considerably more cartoony than it tends to be today. Even the newer releases have preserved that aesthetic. But it irks nonetheless; anyone buying Kenny is more than likely doing it to include alongside a bunch of other wrestling POPs who now look disproportionately large. It’s not enough to suggest not buying it, but it’s annoying. Still, Kenny has quite a variety of looks, and it’s entirely possible we’ll see more of them released in future. Perhaps one of them will rectify the issue.

Back in the real world, there are serious questions as to whether Kenny will eventually make his way to the WWE. For myself, I’m kind of indifferent. I’m sure some great matches would come out of it but I can’t help but feel that the rigid nature of WWE’s creative system would probably curtail his best traits. Speaking to Singapore’s Business Times in November this year, Omega noted:  

“I am sort of very much a part of representing an alternative. If my motivation was money, I would already be in the WWE. I was down on the current product and I wanted to create a style and have matches that my friends, my family and other athletes could watch and enjoy. There's a certain kind of wrestling fan that will only like a certain style. They think that's the right way and that's okay but I'm not trying to impress those people. Those people are already kind of set in their ways. I'm trying to open the world to a different style, what pro-wrestling has the potential to be."

The rumours will likely continue for the foreseeable future – but in the meantime, you can still have your dream matches in POP! form. Scale issues aside, Kenny Omega is a great start for the line, which will hopefully actually include some Japanese wrestlers soon too.