Saraya Saber credits Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada for helping revive her passion for professional wrestling.
While Saraya Saber grew up as a die-hard professional wrestling fan, her interest later began to wane. After tuning into NJPW though, her fandom had officially been reignited. During a recent interview with WrestleZone‘s Ella Jay, Saber explained how the likes of Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada reeled her back into the wrestling world.
“Once you grow up watching, and I still love WWE don’t get me wrong, but once you grow up watching that sort of style where it’s very story driven and the matches are 5 to 10 minutes, and then you watch something like a Omega versus Okada or Omega versus [Will] Ospreay, which at this point is probably my favorite match of all time … but you go from watching these five to 10-minute matches that are very story and character-driven to this 45 minute to one-hour classic sort of match where they’re just beating the heck out of each other. I was just like, ‘This is amazing,'” Saber recalled.
“Not only are they really letting each other have it, the cardio that that takes [is impressive]. It was something special. Especially going from watching that WWE style to some of my first experiences of non-WWE wrestling being Omega versus Okada at the Tokyo Dome or AJ Styles versus Shinsuke Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom, it was a whole new world.”
After seeing the high intensity and action of NJPW, Saber eventually felt compelled to join the squared circle herself. In 2022, Saber then enlisted in the Nightmare Factory, which is led by Omega’s former colleague — Cody Rhodes. Now, Saber finds herself as an active competitor on the independent circuit, eager to carve out her own wrestling resume.
Watch our full interview with Saraya Saber: