Last month, current IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega announced via an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard that New Japan Pro Wrestling had given him their blessing to run a show during the 2018 CEO Gaming Championships (you can read that here) in Daytona Beach, Florida. That took place last night with the following results:

• Chasyn Rance defeated Aaron Epic
• Michael Nakazawa defeated Adam Schmidt
• Alex Jebailey defeated Michael Nakazawa
• Jyushin Thunder Liger defeated Rocky Romero
• The Guerrillas Of Destiny defeated David Finlay & Juice Robinson
• Jeff Cobb defeated Chase Owens
• Dragon Lee & Ryusuke Taguchi defeated Roppongi 3K
• The Golden Lovers defeated Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi

Results c/o PWInsider

Omega has since started taking criticism for putting Chasyn Rance in a match, as Rance is a registered sex offender after he was convicted of having sex with a 15-year old in 2011. Reportedly, in 2008 a California teen went to police after her mother read her diary where it was written the teen had sex with Rance while on multiple occasions while on a trip to Orlando, Florida. It was also added that the two remained in contact and Rance was aware that she was a minor, while he was 24-years old at the time. Rance was also previously on the VH1 show ‘Tool Academy’.

Kenny responded to criticism on Twitter this morning, vehemently defending the decision to book Rance:

“Here it is: I produced all matches from dark match #2 on.I gave the ring crew (also a wrestling school) carte Blanche to have our first dark. No entrances,no name graphics. And thus they had a match. I met Chasyn once in 2004 so his name was familiar. The other guy I’d never met.

Regardless of their history or whatever, this crew of people were all very helpful in set up, tear down, and various odd jobs around the arena. I’d felt giving them the opportunity to have a dark match was the least I could do as a way to show appreciation.

I’m gutted that people feel betrayed by their involvement, but at no point did I feel I was working with criminals or anything of the sort. As I’d said earlier, they were nothing but polite and helpful throughout the entire experience.”

The IWGP Heavyweight Champ has now issued an apology:

Big thanks to all that made #CEOxNJPW possible, but I wanted to address a terrible oversight on my part, in depth, for all to read. pic.twitter.com/JKBiqcuzGK

— Kenny Omega (@KennyOmegamanX) June 30, 2018

EA’s Take: This is pretty tricky because in this day and age where everybody is so sensitive and Chasyn Rance obviously was wrong in what he did, at the same time it’s also been ten years since it happened and America is supposed to be about second chances. I’m not defending what he did by any means (even though I know some will interpret it that way), but Omega isn’t the only one who’s booked Rance in the last seven years since his conviction. Ultimately, I think Kenny’s actual feelings are what we saw with him defending the decision at first. Seems to me like somebody, whether it be the fan backlash or maybe even New Japan themselves got him to change his tune on it. Or maybe he just really was truly unaware.

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