It doesn't take a genius to see that Kenny Omega is one of the most important figures in AEW history, not only as a two-time AEW Men's World Champion but as one of the key figures, along with fellow AEW EVPs Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, and AEW owner Tony Khan, in getting AEW launched in 2019. But according to Khan, Omega has even more importance to AEW's beginning than previously thought. During the post-Redemption media scrum, just after Omega retained the AEW World Title against Kevin Knight, Khan gave Omega a ton of importance to AEW's formation, not from him being a ground floor talent and an EVP, but from what Omega was doing in New Japan Pro Wrestling a year before AEW started."It's because of Kenny Omega that there is an AEW," Khan said. "And Kenny Omega really helped prove a market worldwide to support a second worldwide wrestling promotion. And it was, at Wrestle Kingdom, when Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho wrestled, the kind of business they did, the live house, and also the amount of streaming purchases."It showed everybody, including me, that there really is a market. And I'm a huge believer in it. I watched the match live, and to see the kind of interest, it really...it got me thinking. And it was almost exactly three months later, when I was in Beverly Hills, when I had the opportunity to the President, at the time, of TBS and TNT, about bringing a wrestling show back to TBS and TNT."Just afew moments later, Khan went even further when talking about Omega's importance to AEW."I can tell you there would be no AEW without Kenny Omega," Khan said. "I would not be in this chair, I would not be in the position to be the President of a professional wrestling organization of the caliber of All Elite Wrestling without a great World Champion, executive vice president, a friend and a founding father like Kenny Omega."
