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JAN.21.2021

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Audience with a Deity: Kota Ibushi interviewed (1/2)

Kota Ibushi grants first long form interview since double title win

After two nights, two main events and 80 plus minutes of warfare, Kota Ibushi emerged from Wrestle Kingdom having fulfilled his promise of becoming double IWGP heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion, and in his words ‘becoming God’. Now, in his first long form interview since the Tokyo Dome, Ibushi talks about his plans for the gold, and facing SANADA in Hiroshima on February 11.

Watch New Beginning in Hiroshima February 10 & 11 LIVE and in English on NJPW World!

I just burst into tears at 3,4 in the morning

–So after everything that happened in the Tokyo Dome and then New Year Dash, have you had the time to settle down a little?

Ibushi: Yes, thank you! I’ve calmed down a fair bit.

–After that epic match on January 5, what was that night like for you, after the match?

Ibushi: Oh man, I couldn’t sleep at all. I eventually dropped off, I think about 7AM? Then I woke up at 8 (laughs).

–Just one hour?

Ibushi: I nodded off again around noon and woke back up at 1PM, so altogether, two (laughs).

–You and Kazuchika Okada are the only two people who can say they’ve wrestled in Tokyo Dome main events in successive nights. I imagine it took a pretty big toll.

Ibushi: Hmm. On the 5th, or I guess it was the small hours of the 6th, 3,4 in the morning, I just randomly burst into tears. It just flooded me, I guess. Not happiness, something else. I just cried my eyes out for about two hours. There was a lot; how tough the matches were, keeping the belts, the fact we were just able to do the two nights in the Dome in the first place. It all caught up to me, all at once. 

–There was a lot of pressure on you.

Ibushi: A hell of a lot. I think it all just released at once, and I seriously couldn’t stop crying. Like I thought I was getting dehydrated, it was that bad.

–And how was that aftermath for you physically?

Ibushi: I think that really hit me on the 7th, and then through to the 9th. I hurt my foot, and that was giving me trouble, but it was more than that; I really couldn’t move at all.

–All that adrenaline had gotten you through past New Year Dash!!

Ibushi: Right. I knew I had to put all I had into those three days. I don’t think I’ve ever been as tired before. Physical damage is part of that, but I think pressure was the bigger factor.

I left the belts with that picture of my dad 

–What was the night of the fourth like for you?

Ibushi: There was a lot of adrenaline running through me, but I was also just trying to move right onto the fifth. I was almost chanting ‘tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow’ to myself like a mantra, to get that night out of my head and turn my attention to the next day.

–You could hardly kick back and congratulate yourself on the win. 

Ibushi: Exactly. I had to forget that night completely, brainwash myself, almost that the fifth was the first day, the only day. Even though I was beaten up, I had to forget and move on.

–So did that mean you got some sleep on the fourth.

Ibushi: I did, yeah. It helped that both nights were a 5PM start. Sometimes you have the second night start at 3PM, and that makes it hard to turn around. 

–Ah, yes, that’s often a problem during the G1, to immediately turn around for an afternoon start at the final. 

Ibushi: Right. I think the second day being later, going 3PM, 5PM is better. Anyway, this time both days were 5PM, so I slept OK, by my standards.

–To go behind the scenes a little here, how the physical championship belts are treated depends on the champions. Some have the company look after the belts, and some take care of the belts themselves. What did you choose to do?

Ibushi: I took them with me, yeah.

–I thought you would. 

Ibushi: Since my dad passed, I have this pedestal at home, 150cm high, with a picture of my dad on it. I laid the belts either side of him when I got back. 

–That must have been a big deal, emotionally. 

Ibushi: Yeah. He supported me more than anyone, so.

–I’ve heard stories of guys sleeping with the titles.

Ibushi: Hahaha, no I didn’t go that far.

–It’s always interesting to hear what people think the instant they take that IWGP Heavyweight title for the first time. Togi Makabe said his whole world completely changed. 

Ibushi: For me, it was a bit different, because I had to focus on the next night. After the fifth is when it really hit me. I did feel that everything had changed, my feelings toward wrestling changed, I think.

–I see.

Ibushi: I think now, as champion, I really can’t get hurt, can’t get sick. My responsibilities are that much more pronounced. 

–Can you sum up, with some perspective now, what it means to be IWGP Heavyweight Champion?

Ibushi: Heavy. In every sense. It’s a heavy undertaking. 

I think little Ibushi and little Naito would have been best friends

–I want to talk more about your match on that first night with Tetsuya Naito. Before that match, you were talking a lot about taking things back to your youth, having fun. Were you able to do that?

Ibushi: Hmm. I thought before that match that I’d taken too many things away from who I was. I wanted to recpature the old me; I watched a lot of old DVDs, went back to the first place I lived in years ago while I was starting out.

–You went back to the apartment you had when you moved to Tokyo?

Ibushi: Right, where I lived when I made my debut, and when I was kickboxing; I didn’t go as far as going to that gym, but I headed to the area. 

–Going back to your roots.

Ibushi: yeah. There was a lot of nostalgia, walking that same road from the station. I lived in this really cheap place; my rent was 22,000 Yen (approx 200 USD) a month.

–That’s cheap!

Ibushi: You get what you pay for! There was this tiny bathroom, a toilet and a tub someone my size seriously couldn’t fit in. Old building, too; 40 years old or so.

–Haha! But you really took this going back to your roots thing seriously.

Ibushi: I really did.

–I think that came through in the match. It felt like a culmination of your rivalry to date. Not directly over the top dangerous, but a refinement of everything that came before. 

Ibushi: That was the goal. Bring that old stuff, that history and add in who he and I are now. I think bringing in that history is what made that match for me. 

 –Did you bring yourself back to those schoolyard days like you wanted?

Ibushi: I did. You know, I might have said this before, but I really think growing up, he and I were probably watching the same stuff at the same time. Both watching World pro-Wrestling every week on TV.

–Miles apart as kids, but like minded. 

Ibushi: If Kid Naito and Kid Ibushi were in the same class, they’d be best friends, for sure. 

That was a real shock

–I wanted to ask you about that moment when naito handed you the two belts. It really came out of left field; how did you take it?

Ibushi: It was a real shock. Even I don’t know exactly what he was thinking, what his true motives were, but I think that was something you wouldn’t really understand if you didn’t know the relationship we have, the journey we were on as people watching the same wrestling together growing up.

–You seemed taken aback.

Ibushi: I was. I never thought he would hand over those belts to me like that. I don’t know what was really going through his head.

–When that moment happened it took me back to what you said last year, that it had to be Naito you took the belts from.

Ibushi: So that moment really settled my resolve for January 5. He’s my rival of course, but in that moment, I was taking the responsibility of his pressures, his hopes as well, I think.

–What was the first thing you felt when you held the belts.

Ibushi: Like I mentioned, the weight. In every sense of the word. The actual belts are legitimately very heavy, but there’s so much responsibility that comes with that, and so much history as well, when you think of the lineage to the Hashimotos, the Mutos I grew up with. All of that really hit me as soon as I held the titles.

–NJPW’s history is all symbolised by the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. 

Ibushi: That’s heavy. It really is. Almost too heavy.

Hashimoto is the model to me

–The next night when you defended against jay White, and every night since, you’ve held the Intercontinental title over your shoulder and worn the heavyweight around your waist.

Ibushi: Well, it’s the first time I’ve held that belt. I think Hashimoto is the model champion to me, you know? That’s the image I have most vividly in my mind, him with the belt around his waist. 

–You’ve talked in the past about being influenced by Jyushin Thunder Liger, or Great Sasuke, but Hashimoto was a real inspiration to you.

Ibushi: I just loved watching Hashimoto. I really thought he was the toughest guy on the planet. So yeah, that King of Destruction philosophy is in me I think.

–Neither Naito nor EVIL wore the belts. It’s been a while. 

Ibushi: Right, I suppose there haven’t been many people recently wearing their championship belts. Part of it is the belt itself is seriously huge. Like even for me, I have to fasten it on the tightest fastener! But I think wearing it makes you feel pretty cool, and again, it’s that sense of history first time you do it.

–That match with jay was a real rollercoaster. 

Ibushi: And I was coming off of 31 painful minutes the night before! I think that match with Naito really brought that thing of ‘the strongest and the best’ into focus, but then to go 48 with Jay… I was hoping to finish him in 20.

–It was a very different match than with Naito, and amazing in it’s own right.

Ibushi: You can’t argue that he’s a phenomenal wrestler. To be able to wrestle like he does at his age is incredible. Granted, he didn’t go through what I went through those two nights, but you have to give credit where it’s due. 

–Wrestling’s often about wrestlers drawing something from their opponents. Was this a Kota Ibushi match, or a Jay White one?

Ibushi: It was both of us. I think we each tried to go to the other’s pace. Really a match is nothing without an opponent, so it was both of ours.

–It was a very different style of match, and there was much more of a personal issue between the two of you. It wasn’t the kind of Ibushi match we typically see, it was almost a very straightforward good and evil battle.

Ibushi: That wasn’t really conscious on my part, but I guess that people felt that way; you aren’t the first person to say that to me.

–It felt very old school in a way, a very different feel to it. 

Ibushi: I think it was something different. Wrestling Jay is always something different. 

 

More in part 2!

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