Kota Ibushi Steps Away From NJPW?

Here's the latest turn of events!

Maybe. Given the latest turn of events from Kota Ibushi.

No new information as of yet from Ibushi in regard to frustrations or accusations but subtle changing of his twitter header and bio does raise more questions rather than answers in this ongoing situation between NJPW and Kota Ibushi.

Kota Ibushi has replied to fans only expressing deep gratitude, apologizing to fans who are sad or hurt by the recent events come to light, and wishing fans will see him one day, down the road when he is completely healed.

As of yet, no one from New Japan Pro Wrestling has made an official statement via social media or on their website (njpw1972.com) about Kota Ibushi’s contractual status with the company or a statement about the accusations Ibushi posted to twitter.

Summary of the time of tweets can be found here: Time of Ibushi's tweets - Oct 2021 - May 2022

NJPW is currently hosting and dealing with the Best of Super Jrs 29 tournament and just concluded their press conference for the event that’ll start on May 15th.

Ibushi has removed all mentions of NJPW from his bio and posted up a Japanese sign as his header.

The same twitter header sign is from this picture. In 2016, Kota Ibushi held up this sign when he announced retiring from both DDT and NJPW. At the time he had a dual contract and the multiple matches from both companies was taking a toll on his body and mental health. He decided to step away then, in 2016, and form his own “promotion” called: Ibushi Research Institute.

This allowed Kota Ibushi to essentially become a freelancer throughout 2016. This gave Ibushi the freedom to compete at his own pace at different promotions. March 21, he wrestled at DDT’s 19th anniversary. In April he returned to the states to wrestle at Evolve and Kaiju Big Battle. He appeared in the crowd at an NXT Takeover Dallas event. He then flew back to Japan to make his debut at Inoki Genome Federation (IGF). On August 11 Ibushi made his debut at Wrestle-1.

And then the biggest shocker in Kota Ibushi’s freelance wrestling career and wrestling career as a whole.

On June 13, 2016, Ibushi was announced as a participant in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic tournament. And the rest is history.

I still hope that NJPW and Kota Ibushi can still work out their differences.

Source: NJPW Fandom