Kota Ibushi Signals Wrestling Career May Be Winding Down

All Elite Wrestling’s “Golden Star” Kota Ibushi has contemplated retirement from professional wrestling as he enters a third day without sleep.

by: R. Faliani

When All Elite Wrestling announced the signing of the “Golden Star” Kota Ibushi, many were curious as to what could Ibushi do in the company as a signed talent. It’s obvious Ibushi was always meant to be in AEW since its inception back in 2019, but his desire to become IWGP World Champion was stronger, and he stayed in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Now that he’s in the company, he has been battling with many injuries and a constant limitation: The idea of retirement.

Ibushi had many ventures this year into both AEW and even GLEAT, as he wrestled in GLEAT’s Ryogoku Kokugikan spectacle. Ibushi participated in AEW’s Blood and Guts match, and he even got a place in the historic All In show at Wembley Stadium, wrestling alongside “Hangman” Adam Page (and even if the company does not want to acknowledge it) his Golden Lover, Kenny Omega.

The former IWGP World Champion wrote an interesting message on his Twitter account, and he contemplated the idea of retirement publicly. It’s obvious that considering Ibushi’s injury back in 2021, it’s a miracle he’s wrestling again, but we shouldn’t take him for granted. If Ibushi feels he can’t give us his 100%, we can’t ask him to still wrestle. Of course, this is just speculation based on his Twitter post, but if Ibushi’s talking about it openly it’s not something that can’t happen in the next years.

自分はキャリアとしてはいつ終わってもおかしくないという状況(メンタルだけ最強)ですが、その他色々見て研究した結果の話だったのでなんかへんに思われてほしく勘違いされた方は自分はいつも元気で末端(最低)の生き者ですので大丈夫今日も寝ずに3日目突入👊押忍‼️

— 飯伏 幸太 (@ibushi_kota) November 29, 2023

When we analyze Ibushi’s career we see there are two things he could do as an active wrestler. The first one could be being AEW’s first Japanese World Champion if given the chance, and the other, as we think about both men’s careers is doing a last Golden Lovers tag team run with Omega. And also, talking about Omega, there’s a little thing he has not checked off his list just yet, and that’s defeating his partner in a singles match.

“Because our first match together between Ibushi and I, was a falls count anywhere, two out of three falls match. And they wanted us to one-up that. How do you one up that? How are we going to make it crazier? What is it that we’re going to do to really hook people into this thing in the end?” Kenny Omega declared, in our exclusive interview.

If Ibushi’s career is winding down, both need to close the chapter in the Golden Lovers saga the best way possible, and we hope AEW’s “Golden Star” can be active for a few more years, just so we can see him at his 100% again.