Golden Star

Kota Ibushi vs Ren Narita, NJPW Showdown in Los Angeles (New Japan Pro Wrestling)

Kota Ibushi's appeal consists of multiple layers:

• His good looks transcend gender. Japan has a history of appreciating the androgynous beauty of men. Take, for instance, Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji (11th c.) or any number of Japanese films - Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) and Gohatto (1999), for instance, Even now in his late thirties, Ibushi looks less like flesh and blood than an anime hero.
• He takes crazy-enormous risks - frighteningly dangerous bumps in which his head and neck bend beyond right angles, and there's also the  second-story balcony moonsault that barred him from Nippon Budokan for six years. He's also careless with  his image as an athlete - donning a blonde wig and red lipstick to play a female fashion model on a Japanese game show in 2016 and wrestling an inflatable sex doll in 2019. As for career choices, Ibushi has turned up his nose at highly lucrative contracts on multiple occasions.
• Then, too, there's his long-running Golden Lovers gimmick (?) with Kenny Omega. Even when booked to fight each other, Ibushi and Omega demonstrate a great deal of tenderness and affection, even while (see the bullet above) performing perilous stunts and delivering some of the stiffest smacks in professional wrestling.
• As recently as 2016, Kota Ibushi had no idea who Vince McMahon is.

For all those reasons, I love the guy. And with each new headline-making stunt I wish he were my boyfriend - or at least a close Platonic pal. The match above occurred nine months ago. Narita is 16 years younger than Ibushi - a rapidly rising star at NJPW. It's fun to imagine this as Ibushi clipping the young hotshot's wings. Ibushi doesn't even break a sweat. Narita has some terrific spots that highlight his aggressiveness and knowhow, but unfazed Ibushi subjects him to one humiliation after another. One item on my bucket list (I'm old enough to think in terms of bucket lists) is a front-row seat watching Ibushi in a live show, preferably in Japan.

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