The price of freedom, the price of greatness
When you have the kind of undeniably superior talent that Kota Ibushi has, it comes with the heavy question of what you owe the world — and what you owe yourself.
Someone on tumblr asked me what I thought about Kota Ibushi signing with NJPW. I had… some feelings, which I’ve expanded upon here. Hey, you’re the one reading this.
OFFICIALLY, Ibushi signing with NJPW is still a rumor right now, to my knowledge— we haven’t heard an official announcement from NJPW. Even his profile page on NJPW’s English site uses the phrasing “announced he was fully committed.” So, because Kota… I’m going to wait until something official is announced. Keep in mind that he did the entire Cruiserweight Classic and was in NXT during that time, but still hadn’t for-sure signed in time to win the tournament. He then continued to be in NXT for a couple of months, even though he didn’t commit, and WWE kept offering him shorter contracts, better schedule flexibility, and more money. According to him, after all of that, he physically attended a secret hotel room meeting with WWE for the sole purpose of telling them no, never, and that his mind would not be changed by any money or promises they could make.
I’m not even really saying the rumor is dubious — I think it’s likely he has done exactly as he says, and it’s even been mentioned on English commentary — I’m just saying I’m gonna wait for actual official confirmation with this guy.
That said, I’m going to write a long thing about his character arc. It’s what I do.
Kota Ibushi is really fucking good at professional wrestling
Let’s start with the obvious: Kota Ibushi is really fucking good at wrestling. He could show up on the doorstep of any wrestling promotion in the world and be welcomed with immediate upper-card booking, open arms, and a fuckton of money. He’s just that good. He’s pretty much universally admired by other wrestlers and wrestling critics. Very few people would argue with you if you called him one of the greatest pro wrestling talents of all time.
And if breathtaking natural ability isn’t enough (it’s not), Ibushi has all the magnetism, star power, and understanding of emotion needed to make a wrestling superstar. Sure, it often gets missed or overlooked in light of his talent, and yeah, sometimes he really sucks at promos. Still, you don’t get to be ace of a company like DDT on flips alone. Don’t let the dumb jock act fool you: he’s the whole package. Let no one tell you otherwise.
In sports, a reputation like Ibushi’s usually comes with a small museum’s worth of titles, trophies, and accolades. But Ibushi doesn’t have the trophy case to back up the praise he’s earned. And that’s because in most sports, talent usually translates directly to winning and becoming legendary — but not wrestling.
Because, of course, in wrestling, the outcomes of matches are not decided by talent, they’re chosen based on the best interests of the wrestling promotion. Ibushi has been a freelancer since 2016, which neatly coincides with when he stopped winning stuff.
Because he’s just that good, he’s gotten far better booking than most freelancers could ever dream of. But he hasn’t gotten serious pushes, because no matter how talented someone is, it ultimately doesn’t make good business sense for a wrestling promotion to have a champion who only works for himself, to invest money and reputation in someone who can’t — explicitly will not — promise your promotion a return on your investment. Which is why Ibushi’s trophy case is so empty compared to his reputation.
He obviously knows all these dots are connected. Titles never really mattered to him, back when he had titles more often. Now, he knows the reputation he has, and he knows that all he has to do is want to be the best in the world. Ibushi doesn’t love making choices, but this one he cannot avoid: achievement or freedom. His dazzling talent grants him access to both, to an extent that’s simply not available to others. And he’s actually had a really impressive amount of cake-and-eating-it-too as a freelancer; much more than most could hope for.
But since 2016, he’s deliberately chosen freedom, knowing that the cost is achievement.
Kota Ibushi is not very good at doing stuff the traditional way
The truth is, when you’re as talented as Kota Ibushi is, sometimes your gifts feel like a burden. No matter what you want out of life, your talent is so obvious and striking that it demands you account for what you’re doing with it, both to yourself and to other people. Your talent is bigger than whatever it is that your heart wants, and you will be obligated to answer for that, to yourself and others, constantly — wherever you go and whatever you do. And that will remain true even if fulfilling your potential has a cost you don’t want to pay.
Ask Kota Ibushi. His amazing talent meant that NJPW and DDT were both willing to give him full-time contracts at the same time; he was the first wrestler to have two home promotions. Someone as good as he is almost has to accomplish unprecedented things like that, right? No one else can, and no one else would be allowed to even try — who else would be worth that level of accommodation; two promotions both willing to not only have a guy who spends half his time making money for a rival promotion, but both push him as far as he wants to go, and work their scheduling so he could successfully maintain two schedules? And even before that, he won Best of the Super Juniors as an outsider. He was the first. He was the only one. He did that.
Buuut, the cost of fulfilling that amazing potential was his mental and emotional wellbeing. For one, it meant he had to give up one of the things that made him happiest — being a Golden Lover. For another, his life was not his own. He later said that he learned that even one schedule is incredibly draining for him, and that one of the hardest things was how little emotional investment he was able to give his performances and the storylines happening in each promotion.
His surgery in late 2015, the reason he left both DDT and NJPW, was for a cervical disc injury he’d been living with for a while. It probably sucked, but it was also a way out of his contracts, because the bigger and more grindingly burdensome issue was that he was horribly emotionally and mentally burned out from answering to two promotions.
In other words, to Ibushi: dismal failure. Leaving your job for mental health reasons in Japan is not a thing. He felt like he just couldn’t hack it, didn’t deserve the acclaim he receives. In his mind, he’d failed his fans and critics, and exposed himself for being the flaky, emotionally weak weirdo he always saw in the mirror. When he was well enough to wrestle again, he left Japan, a bit humbled and humiliated. If being exceptional in Japan didn’t work, maybe just one contract, but with the world’s largest and most famous wrestling promotion, home to the majority of history’s greats, would be a way to live up to all of that potential.
And just like NJPW and DDT did, WWE was willing to make accommodations they rarely make for anyone else — a major reason WWE organized the Cruiserweight Classic was to try to sign him. Not only did they famously beg him as I noted above, they offered him contract flexibility — WWE does not do that; the vast majority of WWE contracts are quite exclusive. They let it be a pretty open secret that Kota Ibushi was definitely going be the ace and crown jewel of their new Cruiserweight division. And when he didn’t sign in time to win the tournament he was going to win (if he’d signed), they didn’t tell him to fuck off. They let him stay as long as he was willing to entertain the idea of signing.
But he ran up against the same problem: he doesn’t do well in a tightly-controlled, heavily scheduled environment. So he told WWE no, definitely not, never. And he went home, forced to come to terms with the fact that some people can handle the schedules that come with a full-time contract, but for him, it’s too emotionally taxing.
So this perception of him that’s out there, that ‘haha that’s our fantastic dolphin son, what a ~free spirit,’ is a little unfair. Dude isn’t a freelancer because he’s flighty, unserious, or afraid of commitment. He’s a freelancer because he quickly gets burnt out when he has to follow someone else’s rules/schedule, and his talent gives him the privilege of naming his price. It’s not that he just doesn’t feel like being serious, it’s that he hates his life when he has the kind of commitments that come with a full-time contract. When he talked about saying no to WWE, he said “I don’t wrestle for the money anyway.” That didn’t mean I don’t care about money because I love wrestling, it meant I literally can’t function as a person if I start to think of wrestling as the thing I do to get money.
That means that when he came back to Japan in late 2016, he did so on his own terms, because that was the only way he could. His solution to the problem of burnout and emotional health has been controlling his own time; deciding where, how much, and how he works (he has a school now apparently, and he does stunt work on the side too).
But now, as the grim march of time eventually comes for all of us, his back is to the wall and he knows: if he ever wants the titles to match his talent, if he wants wrestling history to remember him as something other than a could-have-been, it’s now or never.
He’s clenching his teeth, apologizing to Tana, going back into Serious Wrestling Star mode. He said a couple weeks ago that he’s still trying to get his feet back under him, and IMO that’s because he’s still readjusting to being Professional Working Guy again. ’Cause that’s who wins titles, and he knows that now.
“Naito doesn’t need to rush. But I’m choosing to hurry myself. Naito doesn’t need to, honestly, because he’s already made it to the top. But I need to rush myself. I haven’t really done that before. But I have to hurry. I must. I don’t think there’ll be other chances.”
He’s in a hurry. He knows that not only is he 36 years old, closer to the end of his career than the beginning, but also, that what he’s doing right now is going to be mentally taxing. It’s what he needs to do, even if it isn’t what he most wants to be doing. He’s gritted his teeth and dug in. It’s only two years. It will be worth it, maybe, when the titles match the talent.
What about the Golden Lovers?
Back in baby Golden Lover days, Kenny looked at Kota and saw all the things he wasn’t: natural, easy talent, and the booking to match it. Kenny was jealous and felt lesser; he worried he’d be a footnote in the history of Kota Ibushi. So when the Golden Lovers broke up, Kenny chose achievement, and achieve he did. Now, Kenny has a legacy: a huge pile of best bouts, worldwide fame, a name that will never be forgotten by wrestling history. The only titles he hasn’t held in NJPW are the NEVER Openweight Championship and the Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.
Now, Kota looks at Kenny and sees someone who didn’t have the burden of obvious easy talent, but did do all of the things you’d expect of someone who did. He’s not jealous like Kenny was, but he thinks: what have I done with what I’ve been given? Kota hasn’t held a Heavyweight singles title in NJPW. Kenny’s had all of them. Kota feels overshadowed now, irony of ironies.
Now, Kenny’s choosing freedom, and Kota’s choosing achievement. But it’s not a simple swap, because there’s a third element here: happiness. Both Golden Lovers are quite obviously happiest when they’re together. The first time they were apart, they both tried to fill the void where happiness belonged; Kenny with achievement, Kota with freedom. Then, they came back together, and happiness was so important to Kenny that in the end, when he won the biggest prize, he managed to tell a story in which all that he sacrificed and fought for was ultimately, distantly, secondary in importance to being happy.
Now they’re apart again, but don’t mistake it for the same story. Before, they thought they could replace happiness with personal fulfillment, and they learned (after years of unhappiness) that they couldn’t. This time, the Golden Lovers aren’t under any illusions that they’re going to replace happiness with what they’re doing instead. Bittersweetly, the lesson is the same as before, but from the other direction: personal fulfillment isn’t compatible with happiness right now.
Serious Wrestle Guy Ibushi is explicitly not personally happy (although blessedly he’s a little sillier than he was in his last loner iteration). Right now, he’s not here to be happy, he’s here to win. But Ibushi’s at his absolute best when he’s happy, even if he’s not winning titles. Will he succeed when he’s not at his best? After all, he doesn’t have to learn the same lesson Kenny did; fail and fail until he’s forced to accept what it is that makes him his best. He already knows that being a Golden Lover is what makes him happy, and he deliberately put happiness on hold. I think he’ll always return there, and so will Kenny. But will he return with titles?
Both Golden Lovers are setting their sights on accomplishment, but it seems pretty clear that they’re doing so with the intention of being back together as soon as they can be—maybe much sooner than a contract’s worth of years. In fact, I’d guess that’s why there’s been no announcement about Kota’s contract: even from an interview posted last month, there were some allusions to the possibility of working with Kenny again in the future. Kenny’s (recently updated!) profile on NJPW’s English website still mentions the possibility of a return to NJPW (worth noting: no one else who left NJPW for AEW still has a profile on the site).
I would imagine that NJPW is still trying to figure out their relationship with Kenny, and Kota’s still trying to figure out how involved he can be with AEW. My guess is Kota’s contract won’t be final until those details are ironed out. I don’t think the Golden Lovers would do all that work to get back together only to close and seal the door on it.
Personally, I want Kota to be happy and win titles and generally have every good and beautiful thing this world has to offer. But I couldn’t imagine the choices he’s had to make, the obligations his amazing skill confers on him. Only time will tell, but Kota hasn’t changed: fundamentally, he is still motivated by happiness. It’s just that he was happy long enough to know he can have it forever if he wants it, but he only has a few more years to get the trophy case his talent demands — to be the Kota Ibushi wrestling history deserves.
