The Golden Champions: How the Omega/Ibushi Story Continues Across Continents

As a lifelong comic book reader, long-term storytelling in pro wrestling is something that really gets me going. When a wrestler jumps from company to company, they often find themselves reinventing themselves or creating new characters to work. But occasionally, a wrestler or two come along who are so invested in long-term creativity that they make damn sure that everything they do in the ring serves to slowly advance their career character arc, and in a "sport" that is basically a grunting, sweating theater in the round, it can be really fascinating to follow. Take the story of The Golden Lovers, the closest thing you'll find to a long-term, epic romance in pro wrestling. 

Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi are two of the most purely talented pro wrestlers on Earth. They also may or may not have been in a relationship back when they were a tag team called The Golden Lovers in Japanese comedy promotion DDT. The short short version (which is still long, long, long) of the story goes like this: 

Back in 2008, a young Kenny Omega, nerdy, in his mid-20s, and still relatively young in his wrestling career, saw a video of Kota Ibushi wrestling in Japan and became instantly enamored with him, recording a super-enthusiastic promo challenging Kota to a match in DDT. For whatever reason, everyone kinda went for it, and that year, Kenny flew to Japan to meet his destiny. They wrestled a wild match that went into a parking lot and featured moonsaults off parked cars and vending machines and other wild shit. Kota won the match and they basically fell in love with each other. DDT signed Kenny with the idea that he would become Kota's rival and they would have shitloads of insane matches with each other, but they swerved the promotion by saying "NO we're in LOVE and we want to be a TAG TEAM because we LOVE EACH OTHER so much." DDT said, "oh, uh, ok...so what's your team name?" "We're THE GOLDEN LOVERS and WE'RE IN LOVE." DDT: "Oh, shit, so you're not just saying that, huh?"

Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi 2/2/2020 - NJPW The New Beginning In Sapporo

So there's this guy in New Japan Pro Wrestling named Taichi. I hate him. He is probably my least favorite wrestler in the company (which is saying something because Jay White is also in New Japan). He's a heel, so it's quite possible that he's doing his job well and I'm being worked, but his character is one of those where you really can't tell if the heat he's generating is "go away, we legitimately don't want to see you ever and think you're bad at your job" X-Pac heat, or if he's working us all to think that he sucks (which, if we're being real, X-Pac sorta did too). Because here's the thing about Taichi: he's lazy as fuck. And not in a chill, nonplussed Orange Cassidy way; he's lazy and also carries himself like he deserves to be handed success on a silver platter, which is annoying as hell.

In a company that consistently produces dazzling displays of five-star athleticism, Taichi barely tries in his matches. He uses chairs and low blows, which is a greater crime in New Japan than in most American companies. He uses his valet, Miho Abe, as a human shield, because he's a coward. He puts more work into his gimmick and his Phantom of the Opera ripoff costume and entrance than he does his ring work, and even then, he can't be arsed to lip-sync his shitty entrance music while "pretending" to sing it. It is the most half-assed ring entrance ever and it is infuriating. In a company where the best in-ring workers get pushed to the moon, Taichi chooses to be a character instead and still mails it in. When Kevin Kelly puts him over on English commentary as a deceptively talented worker who just doesn't apply himself, it sounds like bullshit, because he's never shown me anything other than a disturbing affinity for removing his tear-away pants mid-match.

But Taichi wasn't always a fake opera singer - once upon a time he was Taichi Ishikari, a scrappy journeyman who began his career as a junior heavyweight in All-Japan Pro Wrestling before spending some time bouncing around New Japan on the occasional show, and on one fateful day in 2008, he met, and defeated, a debuting young lion by the name of Kazuchika Okada.

Okada today, of course, is the five-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion and the centerpiece of the promotion, having already, at age 32, held the top championship for more combined days than anyone in history. His matches with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenny Omega are the stuff of legend. Heck, on his return in 2012 from a learning excursion in TNA (during which Taichi went on his own voyage to Mexico), the newly-minted Rainmaker immediately challenged, and defeated, Tanahashi to win the IWGP Title and leapfrog the entire NJPW roster - including a certain lip-sync sensation who defeated Okada four years prior.

Kenny Omega vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 1/4/19 – IWGP Heavyweight Championship – Wrestle Kingdom 13

Has a wrestling match ever made you cry?

I'm sure there are plenty of examples of storyline beats before and after matches that have triggered the waterworks – watch the crowd shots when Randy Savage and Elizabeth reunited after Macho Man vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VII, or when the Golden Lovers reunited at the New Beginning in Sapporo in 2018. When Daniel Bryan returned to the ring at WrestleMania 34, I was practically sobbing during his entrance, and don't even get me started on the video package that played before Sasha Banks vs. Bayley at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn. But when's the last time the actual in-ring action brought you to tears? I'm not sure when it was for me, but I know I got damn close at the conclusion of the main event of this year's Wrestle Kingdom 13.

Over 30-some-odd years, I have been fortunate to meet fellow fans across the spectrum of wrestling fandom. Marks who stick to kayfabe, smart marks who follow every dirt sheet or blog. Jaded wrestlers who like to work every fan they meet, and cordial grapplers who are fans themselves, just as eager to mark out over the classics. Fans of Southern wrestling, Lucha Libre, “sports entertainment,” puroresu, hardcore, and “the flippy shit.” Young fans who love it all, and old timers who think that today's matches are more about spotfests than storytelling. No matter what they're into, if they go into their wrestling shows looking for some sort of emotional connection with the art unfolding in front of them, I am their kindred. Like a great song or film, if a match moves me, i'm it's slave.

There are those among my fellow old-timers who would argue that today's popular wrestling matches are more about spectacle than story; more car crash than ballet. And sometimes they're right. But some of those car crashes can tell thrilling stories in and of themselves—maybe not in the same way a classic old-school match may work a body part, but there's more than one way to spin an effective yarn.

The generational debate between old-timer and today's fan framed the main event of this year's Wrestle Kingdom, as a defender of the old guard, Hiroshi Tanahashi, the “once in a century” Ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling, challenged IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega for the gold that Tana had worn seven times before, while simultaneously defending his concept of tradition and old school pro wrestling against Omega's desire to “change the world.” To many, the clash seemed a bit like inside baseball, an esoteric debate too cerebral to be worthy of the main event of New Japan's marquee annual event. How could a debate about wrestling philosophy sell tickets, much less get a crowd invested? Well, when the two combatants involved are a living legend and Japan's hottest gaijin wrestler, the match sells itself. It's up to them to figure out what the hook's going to be.

As it turned out, the debate about how best to tell an in-ring story ended up putting my friends and I through the emotional wringer. But interestingly, it's not the story some of New Japan's American audience wanted to see—and maybe that was part of why it was such a roller coaster .