that one tweet thread about the Golden Lovers, annotated
Sometime last year, I fell in love with the Golden Lovers storyline. I was only just getting into wrestling, but I could tell this was something different, and it helped hook me on the entire sport. The story floored me, because as soon as I looked beyond the surface, I immediately saw Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi as the emotional center of each other’s stories—as in, the story of their entire careers. Not just the emotional center: star crossed lovers. How was no one losing their shit about this story?
There was so little new information at the time; it was all told in tiny, subtle signals—mentions in interviews, ring gear choices, subtweets, moves during matches. Easy to miss, and as with many queer stories, easy for deniers to ignore or wave off as coincidence (or best bros!). So I kinda started cataloguing these things: because of how often queer stories get erased or lost to history as “well let’s not label the relationship,” I just wanted to have a little arsenal, really just for myself, to say “you’re not crazy, this is a love story.” I became a Golden Lovers truther.
I felt super guilty about it: I felt like I was being a (much-maligned by the Internet Wrestling Community™) fangirl to see a romance where, as many folks informed me after I wrote that tweet thread, there definitely wasn’t any. Their story all happened years ago. It felt like cheapening them to define them, two of the best wrestlers in the world, individually by their relationship to each other. But since that time, it’s become really really clear that, while they do have their own motivations, they absolutely are the emotional center of one another’s stories, and that is and has been by their own design, since the beginning.
There’s a whole other post here (which I plan to write), but my guilt about seeing romance was in part due to heteronormativity (we queers are trained from baby queer days to find every possible reason why something isn’t gay, so we don’t end up hoping and getting hurt or mocked). It was also because there’s a lot of hate out there for the ways women and girls like things (fanfiction, fanart, “shipping,” etc.). And that hate, which happens in almost every nerd fandom, is not about, say, whether fanfic is a valid way of appreciating media (it is), it’s just that some dudes don’t want us in their club. But you know what? Liking things is cool. At some point I decided to own that.
So I wrote this tweet thread, pretty much just because I was super jazzed about how much I goddamn love the Golden Lovers, and I wanted to talk about it (ie I felt I’d already yelled about it to saturation on various other internets). I thought that non-wrestling-fans would be surprised to learn about such an incredibly layered, nuanced, gay love story. In fucking professional wrestling. Then my tweets got really popular.
This one random guy also retweeted it:
But I did not come here to #humblebrag about my fifteen minutes, oh no. I’m here because during that 15 minutes, a lot of people actually asked me to talk more about this. People wanted a longer version of what I wrote. Clearly these people don’t know me; I can’t believe it, really. But you’d best believe I have more to say about the Golden☆Lovers.
I thought Twitter was a pretty good way to lay this out, as it kinda segmented it into bite-sized chunks, and allowed the addition of media to help tell the story. So I’m going to post most of the tweets (there are a few in the thread that are just me hand-wringing about whether people would want to read this shit or not), and embellish as needed. Being a Golden Lovers Truther, I am uniquely suited to this task, as I have squirreled away links and such over the past year. That means there’s a lot of media in this post, so apologies for people with slow connections or on mobile. Ready? You are. You’re ready.
I just want to note that I was talking about D&D elves here, not, say, the Keebler kind (really more gnomes IMO). People have asked for links and receipts about many of the things I presented in this tweet thread, and as I said, there have been many who took issue with my calling this gay story about gays being gay “gay,” but so far no one has disputed the notion that Kota Ibushi is a chaotic-good-aligned, stunningly attractive and physically gifted being of obvious regality, possessed of otherworldly magic, who exists beyond and outside of time. As soon dispute the very sun in the heavens.
Really, Kenny is the only sane one among us; the most correct reaction to becoming aware of Kota Ibushi is probably uprooting your life and moving across the planet to lowkey try to marry him:
This is one of those murky kayfabe areas the Golden Lovers love so well. I don’t know if Kenny actually saw a video of Kota and randomly challenged the man he’d decided it was his “destiny” to fight via YouTube, but that’s definitely the story he tells. The below video details the challenge (it’s where the “destiny” quote comes from), and it’s as extra as you’d expect: Kenny filmed his own DDT-style ridiculous-fight-anywhere match to prove he had the goods. Again, if you have seen Kota Ibushi and not responded by making a video of yourself fighting in a kitchen, at a lake, and also on a sand dune, re-evaluate your life choices. (I promise, this editorializing actually is relevant.)
The future Golden Lovers made quite an impression with their first match. Just think about this: DDT’s president Takagi called it “the craziest match I’ve ever seen.” DDT. The promotion with a sex doll on its roster and the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship. The guy who founded that promotion. Called it that. And it won Best Bout from Japan Indie Awards that year.
But more importantly! Here are Ibushi’s post-match comments:
“Kenny Omega is an AWESOME wrestler! Power, speed, craziness, intelligence — everything is perfect. He is really a nice guy! He is the real Pro-wrestler. I couldn’t keep up with him during the match actually. Also I felt something common between us. It’s like “Yes! That’s it!!” He was great not only out of the ring but in the ring. … I love Kenny Omega! He’s great!”
He loves Kenny Omega! And compellingly, the hunch that brought Kenny Omega to Japan did not steer him wrong: Ibushi feels a real connection, the same thing Kenny just knew would be between them the moment he saw that video. Here’s Kenny giving Kota a shout-out in BOLA (Battle of Los Angeles, a well-known annual indie wrestling tournament put on by Pro Wrestling Guerrilla) that year, post-crazy-vending-machine match but pre-Golden Lovers:
And here’s Kenny last year, wandering around the area where they had that match, pretending not to be sad even as he says Kota is “just old feelings. You know, like when you miss your ex-girlfriend. Just something that stays with you in your heart.” You’ll notice this wistful, pained look pretty much anytime Kenny talks about Ibushi between 2015 and about a month ago. (NOW That’s What I Call Dedication To Kayfabe!) This is also where he says “it was the first time I ever cried after a match.”
Japanese fans loved Kenny, and DDT wanted him to come back for another one-off match. Somehow, the story goes, when DDT was like “remember that awesome match you guys had? Let’s do that again!”, the future Golden Lovers responded with “what about instead, you sign this unknown gaijin full-time, move him to Japan, and put him on a tag team with one of your most popular and promising young talents? Also we’re not going to fight each other again.”
And for whatever reason, DDT did exactly that.
“It became known after that first match that we’d developed a friendship and spent a lot of our free time together.
That’s when we decided to turn down the singles match. We begged to challenge as a tag team instead. The company wasn’t too hot on the idea, but we’d promised big things — not to just be two singles guys on a team but to revolutionize the team work aspect.”
As Kenny says, it seems like they really DID spend a LOT of their free time together.
As for the brothers/lovers thing, I tried many googles, but this is just one of those things that is part of The Lore, mentioned on reddit frequently, etc. I’m pretty sure I heard an interview with Kenny where he said it, but I couldn’t find it when writing this. If you need to discount this bit of the story, I understand, but if you have a source on the lovers/brothers (twins maybe?) thing, help ya girl out! [Edit, July 2019: Ibushi himself said in his interview for Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story that DDT originally wanted to name them The Golden Twins, and they were like “NOPE, GOLDEN LOVERS!” Which is about the best confirmation I could have hoped for.]
The Golden Lovers formed in January 2009 and won the KO-D Tag Team Championship that same month. They held those belts twice, and also held the KO-D 6-man belts twice (once with Daisuke Sasaki, once with Gota Ihashi).
The gif below is from their excellent rivalry with Apollo 55 (Ryusuke Taguchi and Prince Devitt, now known as Finn Bálor). Besides the legendary Yoshihiko in DDT, Apollo 55 (in NJPW) were their best rivals. The match in which they took the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship from Apollo 55 won a Best Bout award from Tokyo Sports in 2010.
On the yaoi thing… I mean, look at ’em. Yes, the gay was part of their gimmick. Here’s a moment from a match in 2009:
I joked in the caption, but that’s definitely what this is evoking, because, as I said, it was part of their gimmick.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m kinda salty that people still argued this point with me after my twitter thread, so I’m driving this one home. Have a seat. Here’s an utterly day-brightening post by tumblr user mitchtheficus, from a 2010 match where The Golden Lovers faced each other (as part of opposing tag teams! They were forced to tag with other people! Oh the drama!). You should go read that post but:
Their pre-match handshake is so affectionate it pisses both their partners off—Kenny’s complains to the ref while Kota’s breaks it up. Then they can’t bring themselves to hurt each other, which of course leads to things like the sweetest headlock you ever did see, and causes shenanigans, because this is DDT. They eventually fight later in the match (which of course was the point all along) and it looks like their match at Budokan would look two years later: intensely, intimately in sync.
They called each other “Ibutan” and “Kenny-tan”; “-tan” being an even more cutesy version of “-chan”, a cute honorific used for kids, very close friends, and (of course) lovers. Here’s a video of them opening Best of the Super Juniors cards in 2014, just a few months before their last match as a team. You can hear lots of -tans here. (I’m pretty sure I also heard a “Bu-san” in this video. As as side note, I’m not sure they’ve used “-tan” since they’ve been back together. Kenny used it mockingly when Ibushi was announced for the G1, but I’ve only heard “Ibu-san”, “Kenny-san”, and “Bu-san” in this new era. Maybe they’ve moved beyond that, or maybe they’re just not there yet; I wouldn’t put it past them to be saving it so it can be A Moment.) [Edit, January 2019: they say ‘-tan’ a lot now. Kenny even called Kota “my Ibutan” on the mic after beating Tetsuya Naito in their G1 match in 2018. Bless.]
They also did a Valentine’s Day special video which features them going around Tokyo trying to evade their translator, fellow wrestler Michael Nakazawa. Nakazawa was with them a lot in and out of the ring, and I think in kayfabe he was a translator and a “translator” (ie chaperone to prevent any ~undesirable activities.) Anyway, they do a whole bunch of standard date-stuff like playing in photobooths and sharing an umbrella, but I can’t find anything but very crappy screenshots of that part, sadly. (As penance, please accept this 2009 video of the Golden Lovers being samurai dweebs in the woods.) [However, in a surprisingly grim turn of events (spoiler), Nakazawa dies tragically at the end (it’s DDT) and the Golden Lovers are kinda like “huh. Well that really sucks. Wanna go home?” EDIT: I’ve finally seen the video below, and this is NOT the ending of the Valentine’s Day video! Two different videos. Valentine’s Day Video remains elusive.]
And of course there’s the kisses. Forced kissing is a huge thing in DDT thanks to Danshoku Dino, whose gimmick is gay panic and sexual assault. (It’s played as high-larious in DDT, in contrast to Cody’s recent forcing himself on Ibushi at Honor Rising, which was quite rightly played as very very not okay.) Dino is at least twice responsible for the Golden Lovers kissing (of their own accord) during a match. The first in their baby days in 2009:
And then a callback of sorts during their last match as a junior heavyweight team in 2014:
Anyway, there’s two documented Golden Lovers kisses for you. And Kenny really did say they were gonna get married:
“Athletically, we have the same credentials, but our attitudes are much more varied. I think the ‘love’ we have in each other is based on trust and a common goal. That would be marriage. Second to that would be to become the best. We know what we want to do and that to sync with each other in perfection is the best way to do it.”
He also said in that interview “though we’re friends, and though we’re lovers…” when talking about their rivalry.
I hope you can all see the ~totally subtle ~ gay ~ undertones and ~subtext now, by which I mean explicitly gay overtones and actual text.
I won’t go too far into stuff you can easily find on Wikipedia, but Ibushi held the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship three times between 2011 and 2014, with a combined 8 successful defenses. He won King of DDT in 2009 and Best of the Super Juniors in 2011. It’s not that Omega wasn’t winning stuff during this time, he was, but Ibushi was getting more and bigger pushes.
Ibushi came into their 2012 Budokan match as both the IWGP Junior Heavyweight champ and the KO-D Openweight champ (the match was for that belt).
I need to stress to you, this match was insane. In addition to that infamous balcony dive, this match also contained what Kenny calls the worst bump he’s ever taken (a rana off the top rope to the outside), and Ibushi kicking out of Kenny’s finisher, One-Winged Angel—very appropriately and poetically becoming the only person ever to do so. (For non-wrestling-fans: that’s a big deal.)
Some would probably call the match a spotfest (that is, just a series of cool moves with no story), but to me, that’s part of the story: they didn’t play this as lovers-turned-rivals, they played this like they were the only people in the room. This match is about two people so in sync with each other, so matched in talent, that they could finally try all the crazy things they’d ever wanted to do, pushing each other to new heights, and knowing that the other would be there to catch them (a necessary trust when you’re doing a no-look backflip from 20 feet up). Watching this match, you can’t help but see physical intimacy that’s uncommon even in wrestling. As LB Teufel put it in their excellent essay:
Most wrestling between men that I’ve seen seems to do one of three things with wrestling’s inherent eroticism: proceed as if it isn’t there, go out of its way to avoid it, or turn it into a grotesquerie. Together, Omega and Ibushi choose a fourth option. Their chemistry is breathtaking, and they proceed as if to say “of course it’s there, and isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t this some of the best wrestling you’ve ever seen?” (It is.) Instead of distracting from the wrestling or turning the whole thing into a joke, they allow the eroticism to settle into every move, every pause, every gesture. It is vital to their connection and to the story they’re telling. It doesn’t just make each thing they do mean more, it makes each thing they do mean everything. And it’s incredible.
To me, this is why Ibushi said during the G1 that while he used to be worried that if they faced each other again, it might “end both of our careers,” now he’s worried that “someone might die.” It’s not because they hated each other or had a vendetta (although I think that’s what we were supposed to infer from Ibushi’s comments at the time), it’s the exact opposite.
It’s because when you’re really in sync with someone, you feed off each other, and it takes effort to stop escalating and upping the stakes. They each see the other as the only other person in the world with whom they can be 100% the wrestler they want to be, with all the talent, risk-taking, exhilaration, and reckless lulz that implies. As much as they’ve grown and matured as wrestlers and as people, I think Ibushi’s afraid that if they got together, they’d go right back to being stupid kids who, through their shared brainspace, turn everything into a game, to the detriment of their own safety. It’s why I kinda (KINDA) believe them when they say they don’t want to face each other again, despite the fact that…
… Kenny has still never beaten Kota in singles competition, and still says he does not want that match. For that 0–2 record to not matter to Best Bout Machine Kenny Omega, who wouldn’t cheat to beat Okada because he needed to win clean, whose goal is to be the best in all he does… I think that’s pretty significant. [Edit, January 2019: Kenny lost to Kota again in their G1 match in 2018 (poetically also at Budokan). He finally beat Kota in a successful title defense in November 2018, but the match was a triple-threat which also included Cody, so Kenny has still not beaten Ibushi in a singles match.]
Look at this anime bad-boy, with all these very obvious indicators that he is bad! Leather jacket! Dark Sunglasses! Dyed formerly-light hair! Uncaring sneer! Gone is the angel twink of yesteryear!
Throughout their run as a team, Kenny says he felt like he was in Kota’s shadow. Even when he got to NJPW as a full-timer, he was still outshined by his former partner. Shit, Kota got more attention for losing at Wrestle Kingdom 9 (2015) than Kenny did for winning. Kenny later said that Ibushi forgot about him, dropped him, abandoned him to pursue his dream of being a singles star. Kenny felt totally left behind, and probably more than a little jealous.
So it’s no accident that Kenny’s heel turn happened about two weeks after his last match as a Golden Lover. As a Golden Lover, Kenny told DDT fans—in fluent Japanese—that Japan was more home than anywhere else, but the Bullet Club was born because its gaijin founders felt rejected by Japan and the fans there. I mean, I’ve had some life-shattering breakups before, but somehow, in thirteen days, the bouncy, peppy otaku Kenny, who spoke fluent Japanese and never let the DDT fans forget that he loved them, joined a faction whose primary defining characteristic was utter disdain for Japanese fans, fueled by feelings of rejection.
Easier to tell fans they were fools—in English only, of course—that he’d been lying to them all along, than admit that he only really felt rejected by the man who brought him there. Who brought him home. The Cleaner was a desperate, heartbroken attempt to reject Japan itself because of how badly he wanted to forget why he went there in the first place. Why it felt like home.
If you watch the gif above, you’ll see how this went down. Ibushi, about to deliver his finisher to a defeated AJ Styles, thereby winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, is distracted by Kenny Omega jumping onto the apron. Kota pauses for just a moment, shakes his head sadly, then looks down in dejected disbelief for a few more seconds before dragging himself to a stand for his Phoenix Splash. But the delay was long enough, and it resulted in one of my favorite counters ever (despite the fact that it’s also one of my least favorite ever) :
Kota jumps right into the spider’s nest, and is immediately defeated by a Styles Clash. AJ thrillingly snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. And it’s all thanks to Kenny, the Cleaner, who hates Japan now.
But the heartbreaking thing is: Kenny actually stopped himself before he could interfere, it was just too late. You can see him jump up there with the intent to interfere, then freeze when he looks up at his former Golden Lover; lights shining above him like halos, beautiful as a Greek statue, about to accomplish one of his biggest dreams. Kenny can’t go through with whatever he was going to do, but the damage is done anyway. And as Kota sobs in broken defeat on the canvas, the Bullet Club celebrates, and Kenny wipes away tears. No one even thanks him for his cleaning services, and no one has any idea how costly those services were.
And here’s Kenny right after that, according to twitter:
So that was the last shred of a soul The Cleaner had, and it died, he later said. Kenny kicks out AJ, and moves up to heavyweight. Now he’s the leader. And now the absolute obsession with winning begins.
“I don’t want to feel passion towards anything but my wrestling. Sometimes it’s easier to do a job when there’s a disconnect. When I start to care too much about people, I find that my performance suffers. I think that was the problem when I wrestled in the juniors… I was too worried about making the fans happy… When I joined Bullet Club, it was kind of a fresh start. I didn’t want to get into the hearts of the people, and more importantly I didn’t want them to get into mine.”
(NJPWWorld subscription required for the above link, obviously very very worth it at about $10 a month!)
And win he did. This is one of those things I glossed over in my thread, because I wanted to focus on the relationship, but I did say Omega and Ibushi are two of the best in the world, and they are. Omega is a critic and fan favorite the world over. His nickname “Best Bout Machine” is no joke—he’s left a trail of Best Bouts and Matches of the Year and other such accolades in his wake. The publication that everyone says is the most respected publication in wresting (Wrestling Observer Newsletter) loves Kenny: of the 5 matches that have gotten more than 5 stars in WON’s 5-star rating system, Kenny’s in four of them, and the fifth one happened 24 years ago. Not every match gets rated, but as of this writing, Kenny’s never had a singles match rated lower than 3.5 stars.
A common opinion in the wrestling universe holds that Kenny is probably the most important wrestler in the world right now. He even says he’s the “gateway drug” into non-WWE wrestling, and he’s probably right: a lot of western fans found their way to NJPW after Omega’s incredible match with Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in 2017. And Kenny’s either the best or second-best wrestler in the world right now, period, and number three is who even cares because Omega and Okada (the Ricky Steamboat to Omega’s Ric Flair) are that much better than everyone else.
But another common opinion in the wrestling universe is the Steamboat to Omega’s Flair could and should have been Ibushi. Fellow wrestlers, commentators, fans — pretty much no one disputes that Ibushi is one of the most athletic and naturally gifted wrestlers ever to step into a ring. I don’t even really have a thing to link in order to prove this, but the conventional wisdom is that he could have been the greatest in the world if he just like… wanted to. But he isn’t the greatest in the world (except to me and Kenny), because, simply, Ibushi hasn’t historically been super concerned with money, accolades, or titles. He loves making fans happy, and he wants to continue to love wrestling, not think of it as drudgery. That’s it.
Imagine being Kenny Omega, selling your soul to win, win, win, working yourself to the bone, turning your back on everything to prove that you’re better than someone who could be the best ever if he just felt like it? And to watch him not feel like it? To know that the thing you felt you had to abandon in order to be great (making fans happy) was his only goal, and he was still great? And the thing you want most in the world (to be the best), he simply chose not to do? Kenny later said that he thought if he won enough, if he was good enough, Ibushi would come back to challenge him. He had to keep winning, to keep pushing himself to his limits, so he could crawl out of Ibushi’s shadow, to surpass him, so that Ibushi would come back and challenge him.
But Kota does what he wants, which includes telling WWE to shove it.
“They offered a full time contract, which I declined, and then went in all sorts of different directions and contract suggestions, all of which I declined… I just said ‘look, I came here to say no’… At the end of the day, it’s a matter of ‘would this decision make me happy? Or make me satisfied?’… I thought ‘is wrestling in that kind of circumstance, that environment really best for me?’ And it isn’t. Maybe for other people, not me. I really don’t wrestle for the money, anyway.”
His vision quest also included cosplaying legendary Japanese warlord Nobunaga Oda.
And a bit later, an impressively talented but mysterious anime wrestler named Tiger Mask W showed up in the flesh in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It was part of a tie-in with an anime series called, unsurprisingly, Tiger Mask W, which featured many of the stars of New Japan. The real-life Tiger Mask W had a style and move set eerily similar to Ibushi’s.
Hey, did you guys know that I am a fan of Japanese professional wrestler Kota Ibushi?
In Omega’s I’m-gonna-win sequence of moves prior to winning G1 Climax 26, he shouts out the giants on whose shoulders he stands. He pays homage to the leaders of the Bullet Club before him, hitting both a Bloody Sunday (Prince Devitt) and a Styles Clash (AJ Styles) before finishing Hirooki Goto with One Winged Angel. This graciousness is uncommon for The Cleaner, but feels consistent with the person we see Kenny become over the next year or so. And it all starts earlier in the match.
Kenny hits two of Ibushi’s signature moves—a Golden Star (sitout Last Ride) Power Bomb and a Phoenix Splash—back to back. Those don’t finish his opponent, but maybe those moves are the beginning of the end of The Cleaner. Kenny reaches back into history, to find something that once gave him strength — something positive and uplifting, unlike the veneer of macho strength the Bullet Club offers. Maybe that’s why Kenny thought Kota would definitely come back after he won the G1—see, I did your moves. I’m still here. Like almost every time he mentions Ibushi, it was half taunt, half love letter.
Then, at Wrestle Kingdom 11, he’s got Okada on the outside, so of course,
Golden Triangle Moonsault, once half of the Golden Lovers’ X-Slash, now one of Ibushi’s signature moves.
Both matches are incredibly significant to Omega’s career, so it’s important to him that these matches—ones that will go into the history books, into the Lore of wrestling’s great matches—have moments where he either pays tribute to or trolls (little of column a, little of column b) his former Golden Lover.
Ibushi’s a man of few words and cryptic tweets, but as I said, all his ring gear after he left DDT and NJPW had this oddly skeletal looking wing on it.
After Kenny wins the G1, he says of Ibushi:
“There are precious few people that can change the face of pro wrestling. It may even be just the two of us. So I’m going to stay here in New Japan, doing my best and waiting for him.”
… before shading Ibushi and saying it’s “embarrassing” that he’d go to WWE and be a junior heavyweight. But then he says, “I wanted to know why he left,” before wondering why Ibushi fought a (very tender and pretty gay) match with another wrestler, whom Omega names specifically (jealous?). From sentence to sentence, he switches quickly between wistful and lashing out. In the video I linked to way up above, right after he compares Ibushi to an ex-girlfriend, he says “maybe he’s not on my level anymore.” There’s always that theme of alternately pining and dissing. Everywhere he can, Kenny leaves secret messages in case Kota’s watching, giving little glimmering hints that somewhere inside, he is still and will always be a Golden Lover. And then he quickly covers it up with insults to keep up The Cleaner’s aloof, empty-souled badassery.
So Kenny finally (in his mind) surpassed Ibushi, and it didn’t bring Kota back. Kenny thought for sure if he could prove beyond doubt that he was better than Ibushi, even better at doing his moves (btw around this time Kenny mostly stopped being able to even refer to Kota by name), Kota would come back to him.
But that’s Kenny Omega logic, not Kota Ibushi logic. Remember, Ibushi look-I-just-came-here-to-say-no’d WWE because he likes liking his job. He didn’t come back, in fact, he taunted Kenny at least twice (through interviews, of course; civilized wrestlemen do not pick up the damn phone and speak directly to each other), telling Kenny to come to him.
“I kind of get you. You’re… lonely aren’t you? Well, I’m right here, waiting.”
Kota is a little annoyed seeing his old rivals (Omega, Naito) surpass him, but he was never going to care about that enough to come back. So what does Ibushi want?
“I want to study wrestling, and I want to make it evolve. Create something completely new. I can’t even imagine what that would be myself… I want to expand what pro wrestling really is.” (x)
And right around this time, Kenny, having unsuccessfully tried to bring Ibushi back with competitiveness, instead starts trying to innovate, trying to be dazzling, trying to “change the world.” He even mystifyingly shoehorns “change the world” into the mission statement of the Bullet Club. If being dominant didn’t bring Ibushi back, maybe being awesome would.
Kenny mostly sticks to throwing shade, but sometimes he gets in his feelings. After Wrestle Kingdom 11, Kenny’s on a “wrestling election” TV show, and he’s voted the #15 all-time wrestler. He comes out doing his standard Cleaner schtick, says in English “I don’t even know why I’m here,” and looks cocky as a reel of his WK 11 awesomeness starts to play. But then, someone he seems to have not expected to be there is on the obligatory Japanese television show commentary panel:
Every bit of bluster falls away from Kenny’s demeanor as he looks like he’s trying not to cry. A highlight reel of Golden Lovers moments plays, and then it’s back to Omega’s former Golden Lover, who has the mic. Ibushi says Kenny is cool and tough and great, then says he would like to face Kenny again, as Kenny’s “kind of a bad guy right now.” Kenny almost smiles, but his face settles on heartbreak.
And then:
Ibushi replies “we will continue,” then tweets “I haven’t forgotten one single thing. I’ve changed what I’m chasing.” (Translation by mithen.)
They don’t really know it, but they’re now chasing the same thing: changing what wrestling looks like, making it new. Because as Kenny said (NJPWWorld subscription required), in the 2016 G1, he caught little tastes of that exhilarating feeling that wrestling was “magical” and didn’t hurt, and was just fun and exciting. He remembers he used to feel that way a lot, “when I was a tag team. With… an old partner of mine.” With Kota having recently been utterly disenchanted by WWE, the magic is missing for both of them when G1 Climax 27 starts in July 2017.
And also, Kenny is starting to look noticeably haggard, tired, worn out. He’s starting to get more desperate and vicious, more mean-spirited. He hardly even seems happy when he wins the IWGP US Heavyweight Championship in early July; all he talks about is what’s next. (And of course, he now says (NJPWWorld) his “destiny” is still Ibushi, except now it’s to “crush” him.) He’s unraveling, and that kicks into high gear once he has to share space with Ibushi again.
Kenny’s goading came in the form of subtweets and references in every goddamn interview he did. When that doesn’t get Ibushi’s attention, Kenny resorts to whiny insults. Here he is being asked (delicately) about Ibushi (“yeah okay, I’ll say his name…”) and proceeding to address him directly for like two minutes in the middle of an interview, as usual alternately pining and insulting. (Starts at about 22:30)
“After I won the G1, I thought for sure you’d come back to me. After I had the greatest match of all time at the Tokyo dome — something you could never do — I thought you’d come back. What makes you come back now? What makes you want to challenge at the G1, after everything we’ve been through?”
Because winning didn’t bring Kota back. And killing himself to be extraordinary also did not bring him back. So Kenny’s struggling to imagine a non-Kenny-related reason that Kota would be there. He’s worried that if Ibushi didn’t come back for Kenny-related reasons, maybe there’s nothing left between them.
Meanwhile, Kota’s almost pointedly not mentioning Kenny. He says he wants to face someone who’s been a rival for a long time — Naito. He says there’s someone who he’s really excited to face again after so long since they’ve seen each other — Tanahashi. Finally, when directly asked about Kenny, Kota says he doesn’t wanna die, and that Kenny “frightens” him.
There was this amazing G1 press conference pettiness:
There were a few other catty moments too, but here’s the best one.
WTF? How does a fucking knee strike take out The Ace of the Universe? We were all wondering this after Ibushi’s win in his G1 block match against Tanahashi. Until Kenny opened his backstage comments the following night with a callout aimed at people using knee strikes. Kenny, of course, has a running knee strike called V-Trigger, which he added to his repertoire (Mega Man-style) after beating Shinsuke Nakamura, whose finisher, Bomaye (now called Kinshasa), was… a running knee strike. He got it from someone else, but that is BESIDE THE POINT. Didn’t motherfuckers know that Kenneth now owns the entire concept of knees?
“No matter how many of y’all go around stealing my moves, claiming that they’re your own, these knees [gestures dramatically to right knee], oh yeah, belong to the best wrestler in the world. Do you think I would select a second-rate move of offense? [chihuahua noise w/finger wag] I’m the best at what I do. I’m the best at everything I do.”
Sure enough, we later found out we had just witnessed Kota Ibushi’s new finisher, Kamigoye. Which of course is bullshit, for as we all know, Kenny Omega is the only person in all of professional wrestling who even has knees. Literally no one else does. (And later Kenny liked some tweets clarifying that this was in fact Ibushi shade, not Rollins, as some people WHO HAVE CLEARLY NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION speculated.)
I remember seeing this and my mouth dropping open in disbelief, my Golden Lovers Trutherism firing on all cylinders. Everyone else in the group chat all “he looks great omg I love the leather jacket” and me going “ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS??” It’s blue and white! It has Ibushi’s old ring gear patterns! It has a half-skull half-phoenix design that looks a lot like this hideous thing from Ibushi’s new merch!
There’s even a blue and white “ELITE” (Kenny’s sub-stable within Bullet Club) in the shape of a phoenix on the ass of these tights, and the “LI” is shaped like a bullet. A bullet that really looks like a dick.
Anyway, lmao if u think this is Kenny’s first I-still-love-you-outfit rodeo. Check these tights with Kenny’s usual one-good-wing-one-bad-wing design. Look at those golden feathers hanging off the skeletal wing there.
Wait a minute Rachel, you say, that’s a stretch. Kenny is not that extra. Okay, first of all, yes he is; everything he does is Imbued With Meaning, have you not learned that yet? But fine, fine, I see where there is room for denial here, so… Y’all remember the house show tights? (For non-wrestling folks, “house show” means an untelevised live show. Wrestlers almost always take them a little less seriously, and have a little more fun. Kenny wore these ridiculous pants for house shows and tag matches, ie less serious occasions.)
The above-referenced G1 super-not-missing-my-ex-at-all gear happened just days after the sad demise of the house show tights. Ever wonder where those crazy tights came from? You know, the ones Kenny wore when he was having fun?
The Ibushi photo on the right is from a photoshoot for the first Super DDT photobook, shot by Leslie Kee. By the way, here’s the front and back covers of that book:
This is one of the many instances where you can see the romance narrative from people other than Ibushi and Omega. Would this moment be framed in this way if these guys were once bros but now are not bros? Would the Young Bucks say “are you sure you wanna do this, man?” to Kenny, then give Ibushi death glares as they walk past? Would NJPW’s twitter account (and the whole wrestling internet) make such a deal about a reunion of former friends?
What happened? According to both of them, Ibushi asked if Kenny was okay. After everything, after the betrayal, after all the symbolism and drama, after Kota didn’t respond to Kenny’s shade and subtweeting so Kenny resorted to talking shit just to try to get a response… Kota was mad, he says, but when he was finally face to face with Kenny, all he could really care about was whether Kenny was hurt. No wonder Kenny pushed him away in self-disgust.
After this, Kota tweeted something like “yesterday’s touch meant nothing. Maybe there is nothing there I could even touch.” NJPW1972 never gave us the promised part 3 of this interview with Ibushi, the part where he was gonna dish about Kenny Omega, and I guess I complained enough about it because some friends translated part of the Japanese version (which is inside an app, behind a paywall, so I can’t link to it and you’ll just have to trust me on this one) for me.
In it, the major theme is that Kota noticed all of Kenny’s signals, but was afraid to look too far into them, he was afraid of seeing what he wanted to see. (BTW, TOTALLY A WAY THAT BROS TALK ABOUT THEIR BROS.) He had no idea, he said, why Kenny would wear that ring gear, and even though the rest of us are like “IT’S BECAUSE HE STILL LOVES YOU, YA DINGUS,” this is a way someone would act if they were trying not to hope. But you can tell, he’s not doing a great job at not-hoping, because in the video, his expression when Kenny leaves isn’t dejected or heartbroken, it’s more like… you fucking liar. Kenny’s first response, collapsing into Kota’s arms, was clearly his most honest. Obviously it doesn’t erase him being a dick to Ibushi, but Ibushi files this away for later. (NJPW1972, the point is moot now, give us part 3 of that interview u cowards!!!)
For Kenny’s part, this is how he describes the meeting:
“I mean, it was obvious from his body language what he said: ‘sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.’ You know, ‘here I am, I’m here for you, are you okay, are you injured?’ It’s too late for that. Where were you? Where were you for the past… however many years it’s been? Y’know, did he care so much about my injuries, or my performance, or promises when he left on his own to accomplish his big dream of being a singles star? No. No. Why does he care now? Because he sees that the spotlight is on me, is that why? Or because he had to look in the mirror and realize his own failures, is that what it is? What, do you want me to feel sorry for him now? I was the guy that just lost the big one. Okay?”
Okay, Kenny. Jeez.
Like Kota, Kenny is trying to avoid Doing The Real Big Feelings about the post-G1 encounter, and not really succeeding. And what could we see in your body language, Kenneth? Why don’t you want to address that? “Where were you?” Kenny knows all too well where Ibushi was and why. Kenny made it pretty clear where his priorities were, and they weren’t with Kota, who went to the other side of the world to try to forget about it. He’s still talking about the (understandable) feelings of abandonment he had when Kota went up to the heavyweight division, and blocking out everything that happened after that. (The Young Bucks recently asked where Ibushi has been over the past four years while they’ve had Kenny’s back. Hopefully he’ll tell them the truth, and no one’s going to like the answer. Kenny least of all.)
According to both former Golden Lovers, they’re on different paths, now, post-G1. There’s a tense period where they’re both in New Japan, but no one says much about it. There’s lots of Bullet Club drama during this time, but Ibushi remains pretty silent about everything. Once, he’s asked about whether he’s interested in the US Championship title Kenny held at the time. “Sou desu ne…” he sighs, before a VERY LONG PAUSE. “More than the belt, it’s Kenny Omega I’m interested in.”
Okay.
After he lets Ibushi know that Kenny specifically told him to leave Kota alone, Cody says:
“See I… I need you. I need you to stand across from me at the Tokyo Dome. I need you to be my opponent at Wrestle Kingdom. What do they say, what do they say? Always pick a fight that’s big enough to matter, but small enough that you can win…
… So get ready to kiss the ring. And get ready to get on your knees when you do it!
Sleep on it, stud.”
Cody’s normally an entitled jerk, and he’s normally hypermasculine and self-aggrandizing (all very appropriate for the American Nightmare), but he’s not normally this… homoerotic? That’s ’cause this is clearly meant for Kenny to see. There’s no way you say “I just couldn’t resist” and “get on your knees” and “I need you” to your boss’s ex — whom your boss told you to stay away from — without that being a statement. Stud.
Although he’s winning as usual, The Cleaner’s been looking like shit lately, and is not very good at hiding his pining for Kota Ibushi. There’s dissension in the Bullet Club ranks, and it’s starting to boil over. It’s very clear that Cody saw a weakness, and methodically set about exploiting it. He pairs this with talking shit about Kenny; questioning his leadership. He starts manipulating other members of the Bullet Club, sowing the seeds of instability to get what he wants.
And he keeps going there, taunting Omega by talking to and about Ibushi in obviously romantic/sexual tones.
This is what Cody wanted. Cody did need Kota, as he said. He needed him to get to Kenny. Cody (correctly) guessed that he didn’t even have to choose between acting flirty at Kota and straight up hurting him; doing both was twice as effective. And it worked. Now, Kenny’s even more vulnerable and looks even more unstable, more unfit to lead, more divided in his loyalties. Just proving Cody’s point. How convenient is that?
Cody’s still provoking Ibushi too, knowing the one person in the world who really loves Kenny Omega is a true threat to Cody’s plans. After the first night of New Beginning in Sapporo, he tells Kota “this isn’t over,” but even then insists he loves Kenny Omega, who is the leader of Bullet Club, Cody makes sure to add. Backstage, Kota says “he’s still pestering me. But I’ll shut him up tomorrow, my way. That’s it.”
The second night, after their match, Cody yells to Kota, “Kenny doesn’t want you. You’re nothing to him.” Kota has to be held back from running back into the ring and murdering Cody. Backstage, he looks like he’s in tears, and says “let me face him again. I’m ready anytime.” And he is.
Thus Cody’s master plan — a 3-pronged attack, as he says — is set into motion. He’s destabilized Kenny, demoralized Kota (so he thinks), and created turmoil in the Bullet Club. Now he just has to put the nail in the coffin once and for all, and kick Kenny to the curb the way Kenny did with AJ.
But Cody underestimated Kota Ibushi, a man of few words, but many feelings. In NJPW kayfabe (and probably in life), Ibushi is kind of odd, wears his emotions on his sleeve, and “marches to the beat of his own drum.” He remembered the way Kenny acted backstage after the G1. Kota was suspicious then, but trying not to hope, as he said. Then, he found out Kenny told Cody to leave him alone. Another interesting piece of information. After Kenny saved him from a chair to the head, he knew. That night too, he’d left the ring in tears.
You can see him holding back a smile; he’d been trying not to hope all these years, and now there’s just too much evidence staring him in the face. He can’t help but hope now, even as he implies to the press, why don’t you ask him why he did what he did? He later (in the NJPWWorld version of the training video below) says, “I tried to play dumb, but I knew what he did. Kenny was looking out for me.”
The video in the tweet below has been taken down, so here’s the official version. I suggest you watch it; you need to know zero things about the situation to find it moving. (Although at this point in the post, hopefully you know more than zero things about the situation.) Totally masterful storytelling from everyone involved.
Cody saw what even the Young Bucks seemingly did not: the Golden Lovers still loved each other. He tried to use it agaisnt them both in different ways: to provoke Omega, but to subdue Ibushi. But even in his obsession with tormenting Omega and Ibushi, Cody failed to see the trail of breadcrumbs they’d been leaving each other for years in order to someday find their ways back home. Nine years of, in some way or another, creating and speaking a language meant only for each other. A few weeks or months of Cody’s bullshit could never erase something so fundamental, in fact it only accelerated the process.
Cody puts his plan to work that very night, the same night he tells Kota that Kenny doesn’t want him anymore, the same night Kota says he’s ready to fight Cody anytime. You should probably watch the video to see how it all goes down, but I could write a whole essay just about the tense moments between the Bullet Club skeedaddlin’ and the hug. It’s beautiful. Kota’s on the other side of the ring from Kenny, facing the audience, who start chanting his name. He spends so long standing there fighting with himself, knowing he has to do this, but frozen in terror. What if he’s wrong? Kota bends down to Kenny and offers his hand, and Kenny turns away. Can’t even look at him.
So Kota follows, and offers his hand again. He keeps following Kenny, stubbornly offering help, even as Kenny feebly pulls himself up to standing. Kota’s still standing there, with his hand out, first confidently, then pleadingly, then mournfully. It slowly drifts down as he loses hope that Kenny will take it, and Kota’s crying. Maybe he really was just seeing what he wanted to see. Maybe he didn’t work hard enough to kill his hope.
Kenny still can’t even look at him. Just like he did when he walked away from Kota after the G1 final, Kenny shakes his head. Like no, I don’t deserve this, and I hate myself for it. “No,” he says, “no.” and then he breaks down. He looks like he wishes he could die right there in front of all those people, rather than look at Ibushi, face him and deal with the chasm between them. He just stands there, reeling, suffering, trying to get the will to leave, and Ibushi turns and walks away.
As Kota once again fights with himself, once again wanting to leave but knowing he can’t give up now, Kenny starts to leave the ring. Ibushi suddenly turns and stomps across the ring, roughly puts his hand on Kenny’s shoulder, and shoves him hard, flipping Kenny around. Now he has to face Kota. Kota, who’s demanding to be dealt with instead of pushed away in self-loathing. Who’s calling Kenny’s bluff. Who, everyone (except Kota) knows, has Kenny Omega’s heart in his hands. And Kenny finally, finally looks at Kota—looks him in the eyes. There’s a brief moment where you wonder where it’ll go; will it be violence, or love, or tension, or cowardice?
Simultaneously the formerly-former Golden Lovers throw their arms around each other, sobbing, burying their faces in each others necks. The force of it makes them wobble into the middle of the ring, and they don’t let go for a long time. Confetti falls for some reason. It was the red with gold stars meant for Jay White, the new IWGP US Heavyweight Champion, whose celebration had been cut short by Bullet Club drama, but maybe only Jay White would disagree that it was put to much more joyous use. Kenny’s music plays, which is weird but you learn to tune it out.
The crowd’s losing their minds, and Milano Collection A.T. screams, then openly weeps at the Japanese commentary desk while next to him Kazuchika Okada inexplicably looks very confused. English-language commentators Kevin Kelly and Don Callis, both audibly choked up, are finding several tactful ways to say “man this is so gay” without really saying it. (“longtime friends”, “but a relationship that goes beyond and deeper than friendship”, “some things can’t have labels put on them”, “this is a bond that goes beyond wrestling,” etc.) All in all, it’s a beautiful tableau.
It’s not super flashy, but instead of Fighting It Out, Our Heroes have matured, faced some hard truths, and gained the kind of clarity you get when you no longer care how you should feel or what you should want. In their own ways, they both had to learn that you don’t get to stop loving someone just because it would be the logical, sensible thing to do. That just isn’t how it works.
I wanted Kenny to pay for what he did, in blood, teeth, and titles. I wanted Kota to break Kenny until he admitted that he was a piece of shit and vowed to make stuff right. But I wasn’t imaginative enough; I only wanted this kind of karmic justice because this is wrestling; I never thought there could be a reunion that was both happy and satisfying. I was joyfully proven wrong.
Because what ultimately broke Kenny was being without Kota, trying increasingly desperately to be The Cleaner; confusing love with weakness, as if vulnerability could never be a strength. So their separation didn’t end with revenge, but this story angle is more subtle, complex, novel, and fucking real than a fight: two people who’ve been through a lot and are simply very, very ready to be done hurting.
Sometimes people earn forgiveness by making up for their shitty behavior. Sometimes it’s handed to them by someone who doesn’t want to carry the crushing weight of grief and anger anymore. Does Kenny deserve forgiveness? Maybe not, but what’s the point in obligatory penance if all you really want is to get to the part where you can hug again?
Like I said, they like to play around with kayfabe; Kenny even said “this is real life.” And of course they’re being extra as fuck about everything, but they’re so enthusiastic because they get to do something they’ve been building for almost a decade. They’re stupidly gleeful about being around each other, and I think it’d be hard to argue it’s all affected. They just unmistakably look like the Golden Lovers again.
Like, either they are so dedicated to kayfabe that they specifically have laughter and smiles and mannerisms that you never ever see them do around anyone else, and they both spent years being Super Serious Wrestlers (with occasional lulz of course) deliberately so they could come back together and look like ridiculous kids who live to crack each other up again… or they actually love each other a whole lot. It doesn’t even matter what kind of love it is IRL, it’s really obvious it’s there.
And if the above documentary didn’t cause crystalline sugar to physically form around your heart from its pure sweetness, here’s them last week Twitch streaming retro video games. Watch it when you’re sad.
I can’t even describe how wonderful it is to see them smile, both in that documentary and in the ring. Even the commentators notice. “When was the last time you saw either one of them smile like that before they got back together?” The wrestling internets can’t stop saying how happy they both look. They are glowing and it’s just so darn nice. It really and truly is golden.
Maybe this is why Kenny doesn’t seem to care too much about his 0–2 record against Kota: so much of his motivation was to bring Ibushi back, since, as he says, what he really wanted was to stand in a ring with him. The Cleaner never really smiled, other than villainously. Now that he can stand in the ring with Ibushi again, The Cleaner is no more, because The Cleaner is no longer needed. Kenny hadn’t been announced as “The Cleaner” for a while, and now he starts being announced as “Best Bout Machine.”
Lost a beat? Is that a phrase? I feel like it’s not. Anyway they’ve both become better wrestlers since we last saw them together, and when that’s paired with their incredible chemistry, well, it’s magic. It’s the magic they were both searching for, that feeling that wrestling doesn’t hurt, where you’re excited to keep going.
Kenny’s driving himself into the ground to bring Ibushi back—first by winning—then by being spectacular, didn’t work. How does the saying go? If you love something, you have to set it free, and if it comes back to you it’s yours, but throwing shade and being a jerk isn’t going to make it come back any sooner, and neither is anything you do because that thing has its own inner life? I think that’s correct. So Kenny’s strategies didn’t work, but: when he started trying to be Great, to change the world, he probably didn’t realize it, but he and Ibushi were on the same page once again. They decided, independently of each other, that they wanted the same things (plus a secret thing that they never talked about directly but was always obvious: to be together again). So when Ibushi finally came back on his own terms, now the Golden Lovers were on equal footing. In fact, Ibushi even feels like he has some catching up to do. Now they truly have some things to offer each other: new, shared goals that they’re equally dedicated to. And the same once-in-a-lifetime, irreplaceable magic they never found anywhere else. So it’s just like Omega said all those years ago. Their goals are “marriage” and “being the best.”
Also, it almost goes without saying that THEY LOOK AWESOME. They’re doing all their old moves and it’s great and I love it. Plus some new ones, including a new joint finisher, which is, of course, A DOUBLE KNEE STRIKE. Of course it is! Of course that’s what it was going to be! Kota now has partial custody of the concept of knees. (I hope we see the old finisher again once in a while, though. For non-wrestling-fans or uninitiated: their old joint finisher was simultaneous 450 splashes off the same turnbuckle. It was called The Golden Shower. Bless DDT. )
I love deeply layered storytelling and I have a soft spot for tag team dynamics. I love complexity, angst, and drama when well done. I cried watching #DIY break down even though I absolutely loved the story, watching how the flaws in their partnership played out down the road. But in with our angst, we must be allowed some sunshine. I loved having my heart wrecked by Gargano and Ciampa’s split, but also? I needed Roppongi Vice, too, who ended their partnership with a hug, epic high five, and genuine, loving support for one another’s future. I love when storylines prove that love, connection, and hope can be just as compelling and satisfying as anger and heartbreak.
The Golden Lovers have finally allowed us some sunshine, and how lovely and golden it is. The course of true love never did run smooth, but part (most) of me hopes they’re past all the un-smooth parts and they’ll just be happy together, doin’ singles matches and tags, winning championships together and separately, being in each other’s corner; TenCozy-level ride-or-die. If they ever have to face each other as opponents, I hope it’s about, like, who gets to name their new kitten. I hope on some episode of Being the Elite, they’re just like at a table with a bunch of vacation brochures, and that’s how their feud starts; like, let’s settle this… in the ring… pal. I hope there’s a 6-way elimination match for who gets to officiate their wedding. As much as I love a complex story, sometimes it’s nice to have something that is just purely, radiantly happy. And happiness doesn’t have to be boring; it’ll stay interesting, because they’re interesting.
But, ya know, it’s wrestling. I know this. Although the Golden Lovers have found ways to make things satisfying and happy, and as much as I want the them to have every good and beautiful thing, I know that other scenarios are much more likely. The thing that’s great about this, though, is that it seems like they have had a lot of control over the way their story gets told. So I’m comforted knowing that however things go, they are telling the story they want to tell.
I still don’t feel like I’ve done it justice. I don’t think any recap ever could.
I think these rumors mostly come from fans and people who know someone who knows someone tangentially related to the wrestling industry. And the fact that these two seemingly hung out together all the time back in the early days. This is just an excuse to put some more of these adorable pictures in this post.
But I guess the point is, it doesn’t matter — and it’s not anyone’s business — what their real life relationship is, the kayfabe story is still gay. I’m nervous about where all this is going, of course. But so far, every time I’ve thought they were going to have to make it less of a romance, I’ve been very pleasantly proven wrong.
So that’s the tweet thread, with… really more information than anyone might ever need to know. It may not surprise you to learn that I have a lot more thoughts about the Golden Lovers that I didn’t manage to shoehorn into this post. I think I’ve explained why this story means so incredibly much to me personally, and why it should be important to wrestling fans, and even to people who don’t care about wrestling.
As they have said they want to, the Golden Lovers have already changed wrestling, individually and as a team. I hope they continue to. I also hope that they achieve another of their goals, and somehow help to change the world. At the very least, I know they’ve changed mine, and I know I’m not alone.
If you would like to help me achieve my dream of having eloquent feelings about wrestling for money, I’d love writing and podcasting opportunities! Get @ me on twitter! If you prefer radical, badass direct action, I also have a ko-fi page where you can send me a couple dollars. Plus, I’m open to requests for writing on other topics, so get in touch!
