Kenny Omega Opens Up About Life-Threatening Illness, Ongoing Health Struggles – Kenny Omega has shared harrowing details about the severe diverticulitis attack that sidelined him in late 2023, revealing that the illness nearly cost him his life. Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Omega recounted how close he came to dying, the toll of emergency surgery, and the lingering physical issues he now deals with daily.
Recalling his final TV appearance in November 2023, Omega said he felt something was seriously wrong:
“I told everyone beforehand. I said, ‘Hey guys like, look, I don’t know what’s wrong with me… but I really don’t feel reliable right now. I feel like I could just keel over… I look at myself in the mirror… I feel like really pale, really blue.’”
He described the match he performed that night as a “battle of will” and admitted he was focused solely on “not falling over, not passing out.”
After the show, Omega was sent home, only to be urgently called back to the hospital. “They said, ‘You could be at risk of dying,’” Omega recounted. “Okay, right, roger that… I’ll be right there.”
He underwent emergency cervical fusion surgery, and the recovery process proved brutal. He shared that he lost a dramatic amount of muscle and weight. “They said, ‘Have no expectation… be happy with any positive improvement,’ and that actually helped to hear that,” he said.
Months after returning to action, Omega still suffers physically, particularly after high-impact matches like Anarchy in the Arena. “I’ll be in bed until like 5pm, 6pm for almost an entire week… I just don’t have the energy. I can’t move,” he admitted. One of the most painful side effects he now endures is abdominal adhesions, which cause severe discomfort.
“When you have to twist, when you have to stretch… the adhesions are pulling apart and it’s causing a lot of discomfort… sort of like flu-like symptoms,” Omega said.
Now, Omega is forced to be more selective with his matches. “The ones that don’t mean anything… it’s like chipping away at what’s left, and there isn’t much left,” he explained. “So I want to make sure that what is left… it’s good tasting meat, you know, hopefully.”
Omega acknowledged that he is no longer the same performer he once was. “There’s still a number of issues I’m working through, and it’s really day to day… I don’t want anyone’s opinion of a match to be hampered because I simply just can’t move consistently as fast all the time.”
Despite the daily pain and limitations, Omega is preparing for what may be one of the most important matches of his career: a title unification bout against longtime rival Kazuchika Okada at AEW All In: Texas on Saturday, July 12. For Omega, every match now carries weight, not just in storyline, but in legacy and physical cost.
Kenny Omega Opens Up About Life-Threatening Illness, Ongoing Health Struggles
