Some weird shit going on with Kota Ibushi.

I won’t bother posting his twitter because it’s in Japanese and twitter translate sucks, but he’s basically talking about exposing sexual harassers and people in power at NJPW.

He also posted a line chat with someone that works at NJPW named Kikuchi, saying he doesn’t care if he gets fired for this.

Ibushi has been known to post weird shit though so who knows.

Yeah not sure what to make of this story. Will def need someone to dumb it all down to me.

May 10, 2022 18:36:44 GMT c said:

Yeah not sure what to make of this story. Will def need someone to dumb it all down to me.

Wreddit made a mega thread with proper translations:

reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/umkd8r/kota_ibushi_tweets_about_njpw_megathread/

tl;dr - Ibushi called NJPW “black,” which is a Japanese term for an exploitative company. He insinuated he was brought back too early so he could appear at Wrestle Kingdom. He says this has been going on no less than 18 years and is still happening. He seems to think his contract will be terminated because of this.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi?

This Ibushi saga is insane, he's now saying NJPW is in cahoots with the Japanese Yakuza. I hope Ibushi's able to get out of Japan for his own sake, they don't mess around like that with bringing this out in the public. He's essentially tackling straight on with the Japanese wrestling patriarchy and trying to change the "Old Ways" for the betterment of young wrestlers so they aren't being taken advantage "just because". 

Ibushi's actions are pretty unprecedented as far as I can tell, wreddit doesn't know what to make of it. In the Yakuza thread plenty of c-style doomsday posters saying Ibushi will have to flee the country at risk of being "taken out", or that he can never wrestle again in any company, not even AEW. I'm more inclined to believe the posters who say that Yakuza are nowhere near the force they once were, and even though they have their hands in a lot of big business, they are not the frightening Mafia-style group they used to be.

Ibushi will be fine. Whether he'll wrestle in NJPW again is a separate issue. I'm doubtful.

May 12, 2022 12:00:20 GMT NATH45 said:

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi?

Kikuchi is unknown but it's assumed he's a member of the NJPW staff. Not that Kikuchi from AJPW.

The problem if Ibushi does work in AEW, which I know there's no problem given him and Omega are super tight is that by AEW signing Ibushi, it would probably strain the AEW/NJPW relationship so the question for Tony Khan becomes "Is it worth destroying the relationship with New Japan for Kota Ibushi". Ibushi's actions are for the betterment of the non-status quo of Japan even if he's doing it because he was being screwed over with payments himself but you can't just go and publically shake up the scene, especially not in Japan and not expect retaliation. I would assume he's putting his name out there as a pretty big name by Japanese wrestling standards but he's echoing thoughts probably shared by a lot of the non-major figures.

If we never get Kenny Omega vs Kota Ibushi because of this then he'll need to fear me more than the Yakuza.

The Yakuza stuff is not news though right? People been talking about the link between japanese wrestling and the Yakuza for decades now in their books.  NJPW was even in the Yakuza video games.

Doesn't seem to have been much activity on this for a week or so, but here's a great Twitter thread summarising the whole saga.

From May 12:

A few updates from today. Mainly from replies from Ibushi. Says he is appalled by how low-level Kikuchi and co are. In this reply, he says in his 18 years in the business he has never met anyone as exploitative (as Kikuchi).

To someone baffled why all this is happening via LINE, he responds saying this sort of abuse of power happens every day to the non-homegrown talent. He can't remember being asked once on the phone if he could return.

To another scared fan he stresses that he is calm, and that he won't know by which means he'll be fired, but that it's just like K to do so via LINE, and that it was likely on orders of Ohbari. There are many more things he can't say. We will know soon.

But he says will be fired anyway (could also read, is already fired, but we have no official confirmation so far) so he will be selfish now. There's too many things at stake.

From context it appears LINE is a text messaging service, like we have SMS.

As regards the identity of Kikuchi, here are Ibushi's words translated:

Kikuchi is a match-maker. He's a little fat guy with curled hair who is often around the seconds. I believe that the current president gave him the order. I'll be back when I have more solid information. What I saw was so dark. Unbelievable things are happening.