‘Real Victim’ Don Callis Blames Kenny Omega For Choosing The Young Bucks Over Family
Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta) will battle The Elite (Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and “Hangman” Adam Page) in an Anarchy in the Arena match tonight at AEW Double Or Nothing 2023 in Las Vegas, NV.
Ahead of tonight’s AEW Double or Nothing 2023 pay-per-view event, AEW released a clip of a sit-down interview featuring Jim Ross speaking to Kenny Omega’s former manager, Don Callis.
Callis, who recently turned on Omega during his Steel Cage match with Jon Moxley, blamed The Cleaner for choosing The Young Bucks over his family and called himself the ‘real victim’ of the whole situation.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On why he didn’t try to talk things out with Omega: “You’re an eminently practical man, and it’s what I’ve always appreciated about you but it’s an oversimplification. You have a family relationship that goes back 25 years. There’s a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of water under the bridge. You don’t think I tried, you don’t think I tried to talk sense, as recently in fact as January when Kenny beat Will Ospreay, which is the last time to me that I saw the real Kenny Omega. I tried. Eventually, nothing works, and this is why JR I never had children of my own because I knew in my heart that if I mixed my superior genetics with someone else that that superior DNA would get diluted, and at some point, the day would come as it does for all parents where you look at your child and you say, ‘You’re a colossal disappointment to me, and I’m disgusted by you.’ And then you have no choice but to take action because inaction means more of the same. So I tried everything. Kenny Omega chose his friends over his family. It’s very simple.”
On Omega choosing The Young Bucks over his family: “Well, It think it’s very simple. It’s The Young Bucks, apparently now it’s Hangman Page, and look, I never wanted the association with The Young Bucks. I have nothing against those kids; well known they’re nice kids. The problem is that they dragged Kenny down. The problem is you have one guy who is Albert Einstein, and you have another couple of guys who just want to have fun. The Bucks like to have fun, so I brought them into The Elite when I came here because I thought well Kenny can’t work all the time. He needs something that makes him happy other than me, so okay. The problem is the Bucks are like wood ticks. They attach themselves, and it’s like an infection, and all of a sudden, Kenny wants to do Trios matches. You know, I had a vision for myself and Kenny Omega that would be a modern day Heenan-Bockwinkel. Kenny chose to be one of the Three Stooges with the Young Bucks. I hate to say it. And I think those kids are great. They’re a generational tag team, but they’re not Kenny Omega.”
On how his actions took courage: “I love Kenny, but what I did took real courage. Can you imagine how hard it is to do that to someone who people say I’m like his uncle? I’m not Kenny’s uncle. I’m Kenny’s dad. I’m Kenny’s daddy. I’m the father figure that he needed his whole life, and I’ve been there through all of it, JR. I mean, people say, ‘Oh Kenny got you into New Japan.’ No. Kenny asked me to come to New Japan to help him as I had his entire teenage and adult life. Worked out well. We beat [Kazuchika] Okada. Then Kenny said, ‘You know I really feel like I’m not known internationally as much as I’d like to be.’ So I came up with what? The most important match potentially of this century. [Chris] Jericho-Omega at the Tokyo Dome comes from me. I put the match together. I leveraged a 30-year friendship with Chris Jericho for Kenny’s benefit so Kenny could have a big name internationally, which he did. Kenny goes to AEW. After about a year, we’re having our weekly call, Kenny’s not happy. ‘People are saying I’ve lost a step. I’m not the real Kenny Omega. Could you come for a few weeks and help me?’ As I had always. People call me the Invisible Hand. I’ve been the Invisible Hand of Kenny’s life since he was 10 years old. So very good, I come to AEW, and the first night you were there Jim Ross you called it. The first night that I’m in AEW, Kenny and I win the AEW World title. We picked up a couple other ones along the way too. It’s been a very successful, like a Brady-Belichick relationship.”
On Omega destroying his family: “Kenny Omega has destroyed the only family I’ve known for a long time. His mother won’t say it, but his mother Marla is disgusted with him. His mother Marla knows that her brother the Sheikh is rolling over in his grave right now with what Kenny’s doing. That’s the simple reality, and JR, you know I know you read Machiavelli like I have since I was a young boy. And they say in Machiavelli, it’s better to be feared than loved, and in this case, this is the situation I’m in right now. As you say, I’m the most detested this and whatever people are not happy with me. But you know what? Think about the fear, Jim Ross, in Kenny Omega and in the Young Bucks. Guys you never saw this coming. Should have, that’s why you always needed me because I told you what was coming down the line, not one step, not two steps, ten steps ahead of everyone else, and you got a little picture of it the other night sure.”
On Kenny Omega wasting his talent: “I’ve been victimized, Jim Ross. Yes, I’m the real victim here. Kenny still has his friends. My family’s gone. I’m the bad guy here because people don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Having Kenny Omega as like my son as you had said is like imagine you have a child, and he has the intellect of Albert Einstein, but he chooses to work at a convenience store. That’s what Kenny chooses to do with his talent every minute he spends with the Young Bucks. Every minute that they’re infecting his head with their blather, the stuff that doesn’t matter. Kenny Omega was a God of professional wrestling. I named him that. But what we’re going to find out I think as things roll forward is that, that God is very fallible. And if there was a God in our tandem, we’re going to find out that it wasn’t Kenny, but maybe it was me all along.”
You can keep up with all your wrestling news right here on eWrestlingNews.com. Or, you can follow us over on our Twitter and Facebook pages.