NJPW G1 Climax: Why Kenny Omega vs. Kota Ibushi is must-see

NJPW have been extremely generous in gifting its audience several dream matches during this year’s G1 Climax – we’ve seen Jay White and Kazuchika Okada’s inter-faction power struggle, and Tetsuya Naito take on LIJ teammate Sanada in their first ever singles match. But the G1 is saving its most important (and interesting) match for last: Kenny Omega vs Kota Ibushi.

New Beginning in Sapporo saw the long-awaited reunion of the erstwhile Golden Lovers, to great fanfare (seriously – even the NJPW confetti cannon got in on the celebrations). A reunion so intensely powerful, and so many years in the making that commentator Milano Collection A.T. burst into tears at the announce table.

It seems incredible, then, that not even a year removed from this momentous occasion their first ever singles match in NJPW is imminent – and that New Japan are just giving it to us – not at Wrestle Kingdom, as the occasion might warrant, but as part of the B-block in the G1 Climax tournament.

But NJPW are clearly aware of just how important this match is: it’s the final match of the B-block tournament, ending three weeks of superb back-and-forth on a definitive high note. Perhaps more importantly, the match is scheduled to take place at Budokan Hall – the site of their infamous 2012 face-off, and the last time Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi faced one another in singles competition.

At the time, the match was lauded as an instant classic, and if you’ve ever seen it you’ll probably understand why. It’s not just the ringwork and high spots that make it special, though those undoubtedly contribute – the infamous balcony moonsault that saw Kota Ibushi banned from Budokan Hall took place in this very match. But, as has become a theme with the Golden Lovers, the true power of the match is in the small details. It’s in the storytelling.

Let’s go back in time, briefly. Let’s start in 2008, when Kenny Omega, fresh off the plane and newly signed with DDT where young prodigy Kota Ibushi was beginning to make a name for himself. The two formed an instant bond, which expressed itself initially in the form of a ‘two out of three falls’ match.

It was a typically chaotic, somewhat bizarre match of the kind DDT Pro had become known for – see Ibushi’s matches with blow-up doll Yoshihiko (a masterclass in creativity) or Omega’s match with a nine-year-old girl for an idea of just how bizarre DDT can be.

While Omega and Ibushi could quite easily have become epic rivals following their 2008 match, they chose instead to utilise their unique chemistry in a different way. They became partners. And when I say ‘partners’ I mean in all possible senses of the word.

It’s not outside the realm of possibility that the Golden Lovers began life as a kind of comedy gimmick – DDT unfortunately have experience on the ‘gross homophobic gimmick’ front. (As an example, see Danshoku Dino for reference — actually, don’t.)

But however it began, it has evolved into something far more complex. Whatever else it may be, the story of Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi is, unambiguously, a love story.

When we talk about the Golden Lovers, we’re talking about a dynamic that encompasses an entire spectrum of emotions, the way the best and truest human relationships do: in-ring camaraderie, affection bordering on adoration.

Check their nonverbals: the way they looked at one another, the easy physical affection, a tangible chemistry lending the entire thing an authenticity that’s difficult to manufacture. And still, at the core of it all, that burning rivalry, unrealized since their first outing in 2008 and growing in intensity even as their closeness – as a team and as a partnership – grew exponentially.

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In short: Ibushi became DDT’s golden boy, earning opportunity after opportunity, and succeeding almost every time. Omega had to scratch and claw to earn those opportunities so readily available to Ibushi – a man with such abundant talent that it seemed as though he’d been born to succeed.

But in spite of their mutual admiration and adoration, the barest hint of envy began to set in. Nobody’s perfect, right? Herein lies the appeal of the Golden Lovers: their story has been multi-layered from the onset, and within each of those layers is something recognizable. Something relatable and real.

Fast forward to 2012. The rivalry Ibushi and Omega have nurtured since their first encounter four years prior is about to be realized. And the powerful chemistry they’ve channelled into building this perfectly synchronized, openly romantic tag team is finally unleashed in what turns out to be a borderline insane match.

There is a very real sense that this match, with all its wire-taut tension and intense physicality, could not have happened in the same way, with the same impact, if it had been anyone in the ring but Ibushi and Omega, together.

LB Teufel does an incredible job of explaining, blow by blow, the significance of this extended metaphor of a match:

"“If a character is the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning, is the story really worth telling? Oftentimes in these epic bouts, the characters’ cloaks of pretense are dropped out of sheer exhaustion. (You see this in the Omega-Okada matches and it’s one of the best things about them.) This is not what happens with Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega. Instead, they actively rip the superficial layers off of each other, getting progressively more and more exposed as the match goes on.”"

Ibushi won. He is, to date, the only person ever to have kicked out of the One Winged Angel. And Kenny Omega has never beaten him in singles competition. Kota Ibushi is, in many ways, Kenny Omega’s white whale, not just because of these significant statistics but because of everything that came before – their 2008 clash, the Golden Lovers, 2012 at Budokan – and everything that came after: Ibushi continuing to outstrip Omega in DDT and in NJPW, moving up to the heavyweight division and leaving Omega behind.

When Omega joined Bullet Club, turning his back on the country and the fans that made him successful, he was effectively cutting the cord. Forcibly tearing himself away from Ibushi and everything between them – jealousy, yes, and a feeling of betrayal, but also love, and a unique bond that Omega would never really form with anyone else. Easier to find purpose and utility in Bullet Club and to focus all his energies on winning matches and accolades, becoming the best, than to allow himself ever to be that vulnerable again.

The reason the Golden Lovers reunion was so emotional (the commentary team were audibly choked up upon witnessing it) is because, in part, of all the scar tissue that has built up in the years Ibushi and Omega have been apart. Because even though they were apart, they never really moved on. Both Ibushi and Omega have held on to one another in the form of motifs on their ring gear (skeletal angel wings), and borrowing one another’s moves.

And there again is that masterful building of tension, only this time, instead of a rivalry between lovers, it’s literal years of mutual pining, resentment, sadness. Even separated, Omega and Ibushi continued to orbit one another. It’s a story they’ve never stopped telling, even with distance, and they have told it so well.

It’s an atypical story in the world of wrestling, which so often holds that friendship is weakness, a prelude to inevitable betrayal. Where anything approaching an openly queer dynamic is couched in uncomfortable stereotypes, or swept under the carpet – nothing to see here.

It’s bold and innovative to present the opposite view: that Kenny and Kota, two men who openly share a romantic connection, are weaker apart. It’s no coincidence that, after two failed attempts, Omega finally won the IWGP title with Ibushi at his side. Omega has found strength in allowing himself, once again, to be vulnerable.

When Omega and Ibushi clash in the NJPW G1 Climax on August 11 – ten years removed from their first ever match – it’s not just the potential for a 7-star bout, the high likelihood that one or both competitors will destroy their own bodies for our entertainment, or the even the probability of another banned-from-Budokan balcony moonsault that makes this a must-see match. (Okay. The balcony moonsault is a big part of it.)

No, when Omega and Ibushi meet in the ring, it’s never just a really good wrestling match. It’s another chapter in a story that carries a decade’s worth of drama – rivalry, envy, betrayal, hope. And most importantly, love. I have no idea what that chapter holds, but I’ll be on the very edge of my seat, waiting to find out.