WWE Hidden Gems Review - "The Real Omega Man"

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

This past week, it was made official: Kenny Omega has signed with All Elite Wrestling. Admittedly, I thought there was a small chance he would go to WWE, but the more time passed, the more it became apparent that he was AEW bound. Thus, no one should be shocked by the news whatsoever. He can be the one the brand is built around, and who knows, maybe he'll wind up in WWE some day down the road.

I remember reading not too long ago that a match or two of Omega's from his WWE developmental days were available on the WWE Network, so coming off the announcement, I figured it was only fitting that I checked them out. This bout was from his time spent in Deep South Wrestling and took place on September 3, 2006. He took on Cru Jones in a quick exhibition, and although the entrances weren't televised, a pre-match promo from Omega was shown. It was evident even then that the guy had a presence about him that made him a star.

It's amazing watching these old WWE developmental matches seeing where these up-and-comers ended up. They either amounted to major success in WWE (and sometimes elsewhere, like Omega) or they simply faded off into obscurity. Jones fell into the latter category, because upon further research, I could barely find anything on him aside from a profile on CAGEMATCH (and that indicates he hasn't wrestled since 2012).

That said, Jones looked more like a star than Omega did at this point. If we're being honest, Omega had a very generic appearance about him at first glance, but he moved around in the ring way better than Jones. Granted, this was only five minutes long or so, but Omega had an impressive outing in that time and even the commentators played up his potential. Needless to say, he has evolved into an absolute superstar since then, so to see him mix it up with today's talent such as AJ Styles and Seth Rollins would truly be something special.

Until then, we can enjoy Omega's work in AEW, but props to WWE for capitalizing on all the buzz surrounding him over the past year by uploading this Hidden Gem to the Network.