Kota Ibushi is a Japanese expert wrestler born on 21 May 1982. He is currently marked for the WWE, where he appears on the NXT brand and is a former NXT champion.
He began his career with the rise of the Dramatic Dream Team (DDT) in 2004 and became a three-time KO-D Open Weight Champion, five-time KO-D Label Team Champion and two-time KO-D 6-Man Label Team Champion over a period of eleven years.
Since 2009, Kota Ibushi has been working for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), he is a former three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and a one-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Team Champion. In February 2016, he retired from both DDT and NJPW and has since been active in several different federations, including WWE as a specialist.
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Kota Ibushi Wiki
On January 26, 2008, it was reported that Ibushi would fight for the ring of honor in the United States. On 11 April 2008, he presented himself in Boston in a match against Davey Richards, where he was hailed as the winner despite the defeat.
On his short trip through ROH, he fought against Claudio Castagnoli and worked with Austin Aries against the Briscoe Brothers just to record the defeat. His last appearance on his US trip through ROH ended with a solo triumph over El Generico.
Kota Ibushi followed ROH in the midst of the second journey of promotion through Japan and collaborated with Kenta against Naomichi Marufuji and Katsuhiko Nakajima in a label group coordination. On April 6, 2008, it was reported that Ibushi would be fighting for the Master Wrestling Guerilla Battle in Burbank, California.
2009
In May and June 2009, Ibushi was interested in the “Best of the Super Juniors” competition organized by NJPW. Kota Ibushi fought against every appearance of Koji Kanemoto, Taichi Ishikari, and Jushin Thunder Liger before losing to Ruler Devitt in the semi-finals.
On March 27, 2009, Kota Ibushi gave his presentation for Philadelphia-based Chikara at the annual Lord of Trios promotion competition, where he formed a group with Kudo and Michael Nakazawa. After his group was wiped out in the first round by Equinox, Lince Dorado and Helios, he went on to wrestle in the Rey de Voladores competition over the next two days.
On March 29, Ibushi knocked down the player “Dos” to win the competition and move on to the 2009 Rey de Voladores.
2010
On 1 June 2010, Ibushi was awarded the second-best of the Super Youth. After winning his Shut with six triumphs out of seven games, Kota Ibushi crushed Ryusuke Taguchi to enter the elimination rounds of the competition, where he was gradually defeated by Sovereign Devitt.
On October 11, 2010, Ibushi returned to New Japan at Devastation ’10 and worked with his standard DDT accomplice Kenny Omega to defeat Apollo 55 (Ruler Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi) for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Group title.
2011
On January 23rd at Fantastica Madness 2011, another event in Tokyo where Japan and the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre together lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Group title to Devitt and Taguchi.
On 26 May Ibushi took part in New Japan’s Best of the Super Youngsters 2011 competition. After losing the first two Organising Round matches, Kota Ibushi returned with a winning streak of six games to be the first in his piece and advance to the qualifying rounds of the competition.
On 10 June, Kota Ibushi defeated first Davey Richards in the semi-final and then Ryusuke Taguchi in the final to win 2011 Best of the Super Youngsters competition. His victory gave him a chance to win Sovereign Devitt’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight title.
On June 18, Ibushi defeated Sovereign Devitt in Territory 6.18 and out of the blue won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title. Kota Ibushi secured the title for the first time on July 24th and defeated Devitt in a rematch at a DDT event. His second title fight took place on August 1, when he defeated Devitt’s accomplice Ryusuke Taguchi from the group. Ibushi was trying to warm up Devitt’s achievement of holding both titles in the Small Heavyweight of Japan at the same time.
Following this success, the Golden Star Lovers failed in their attempt to regain the title of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Group of Apollo 55 on August 14. On 12 September, Kota Ibushi was stripped of both the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title and the KO-D Label Group title after being sidelined with a dislocated left shoulder.
2012
Ibushi beat Low Ki on 29 July, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title for the second time. Ibushi created his first effective title barrier on September 7th and defeated Kushida.
Kota joined in and also effectively secured the title against Ryusuke Taguchi in Annihilation on September 23. On October 8, Ibushi lost the title back to Low Ki in ace wrestling.
2013
On 4 January 2013, at Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Vault, Ibushi unsuccessfully tested Sovereign Devitt for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title in a triple coordinate that also included Low Ki.
On 5 July, Ibushi was declared an unexpected member at the 2013 G1 Summit. He increased his weight from 84 kg (185 lb) to 88 kg (194 lb) to prepare for the heavyweight level competition. Kota Ibushi finished the competition with four wins and five misfortunes and failed to get away from his piece.
On October 7, 2013, Kota Ibushi, together with Naoki Sugabayashi and Sanshiro Takagi, agents of DDT and New Japan, conducted a public interview to explain that he had signed a double contract with the two ascenders (three years with DDT and one year with New Japan).
2014
Ibushi wrestled with his first coordinate on October 14, 2014, under another Japanese treaty in the struggle for the Ace, where he, Togi Makabe, and Tomoaki Honma were defeated in a group of six coordinated by the Projectile Club (Sovereign Devitt, Misfortune Fale, and Karl Anderson).
When he returned to the minor heavyweight league, Ibushi began to pursue Devitt for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title at that time. On January 4, 2014, Ibushi defeated Devitt at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Vault, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship for the third time. Kota Ibushi made his first fruitful title protection against El Bandit on February 11 at The Fresh Start in Osaka.
On Walk 6, Ibushi received the 42nd Japanese memorial service and lost to Kazuchika Okada in the annual non-title-based coordination between the IWGP Junior Heavyweight and IWGP Heavyweight Champions.
On April 3, Ibushi beat Scratch Jackson to clear the second effective hurdle of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. After three days at Intrusion Assault 2014, Kota Ibushi and El Bandit unsuccessfully tested Scratch and his sibling Matt, The Youthful Bucks, for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Label Group title.
Ibushi’s third protection of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title came on May 3 in the 2014 Dontaku wrestling match, where he destroyed Ryusuke Taguchi. On May 25th, Ibushi tested Tomohiro Ishii in the Back to the Yokohama Field to win the Never Open weightlifting title.
At Territory 6.21 (on June 21), Ibushi effectively protected the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title against the 2014 Best of the Super Youngsters champion Ricochet. On July 4, Kota Ibushi in his fifth protection lost the title to Kushida. In the middle of the match, Ibushi suffered a blackout that forced him to leave the G1 peak in 2014.
On October 3, it was announced that Ibushi, who is now accused of being a permanent heavyweight fighter, has extended his NJPW contract by one year. Ibushi would arrive after the G1 and at the Power Battle on November 8, attacked Shinsuke Nakamura after his fight and issued a test for the IWGP Intercontinental title.
2015
Ibushi got his chance for the title on January 4, 2015, at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Vault, but was defeated by Nakamura. In round 5, Ibushi entered the New Japan Glass 2015 and defeated the tree of IWGP label group champion Doc Hangman in his first-round match.
After defeating Toru Yano in the second round on Walk 8, Ibushi first defeated Tetsuya Naito in the qualifying rounds and then Hirooki Goto in the final on Walk 15 to win the competition and secure the privilege to fight for the individual heavyweight title of his choice.
After the last game, Kota Ibushi explained that he had decided to challenge A.J. Styles for the IWGP heavyweight title. The game took place on April 5 at the Intrusion Assault 2015 and earned Styles his title. From July 20 to August 14, Ibushi participated in the 2015 G1 Summit. He missed out on a record of four wins and five misfortunes, scored huge victories over former IWGP heavyweight champion A.J. Styles, and ruled over NIE Open weight champion Togi Makabe.
Ibushi was then given a chance to win the NIE Open weight title at Pulverization in Okayama on September 23rd but was defeated by Makabe. On November 2, NJPW declared that Ibushi was indecisively suspended from the competition due to a cervical circle rupture.
2016
In February 2016, Ibushi announced his abdication from NJPW. On 21 February 2016, Ibushi reported that although he had received permission to return to the ring from his cervical spine incident, he had resigned from both DDT and NJPW and wanted to continue with his appointment as a consultant because he felt that he could not handle the weight of the work in two schedules.
As a specialist, he has been appointed as a delegate of Ibushi Puroresu Kenkyujo (“Ibushi Ace Wrestling Exploration Organization”). He wrestled his arrival game and his initial coordination as a consultant at the nineteenth DDT commemoration on Walk 21, where he and Gota Ihashi defeated Jun Kasai and Sanshiro Takagi, and coordinated Kenso and Michael Nakazawa in a three-man label group.
In April, Ibushi returned to the assembled states to participate in the Advance and Kaiju Huge Battel events, while also attending the gathering of the people at the WWE NXT Take-Over: event in Dallas.
On May 29, Ibushi gave his presentation for the Inoki Genome Organization (IGF), defeating Tanomusaku Toba. On August 11th, Ibushi gave his lecture for Wrestle-1 and defeated Jiro.
Kota Ibushi Career
On July 1, 2004, Ibushi influenced his expert wrestling to a big performance for the Sensational Dream Group (DDT) and lost to Kudo. On June 25, 2006, he lost to Danshoku Dino in a game for the GAY World Butt-centric Title and spent most of 2006 fighting in various group matches of the label.
In 2007, Ibushi did better and he started to win more games by bringing BxB Mass to a joint promotion event of DDT and Monster Entryway. Also in 2007, Ibushi defeated Madoka and won the empty Autonomous World Junior Heavyweight Championship.
Ibushi began working with Kenny Omega as “Brilliant Sweethearts” and on January 24, 2009, he defeated Harashima and Toru Owashi to win the KO-D label group title, losing to Dick Togo and Taka Michinoku in May. In late spring 2009, Ibushi won DDT 2009 ruler and won the KO-D Openweight title of Harashima.
With his chance as champion, he also won the Ironman Overwhelming Metal Weight title and would lose the heavyweight title to Shuji Ishikawa. Ibushi had a better fate in 2011; he worked with Dashiki Dino to win the KO-D label group title, but after disengaging his shoulder, he cleared the title.
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Kota Ibushi Fight With Shinsuke Nakamura
Kota Ibushi is the younger of the two candidates and the challenger for Nakamura’s title, the IWGP Intercontinental title. Ibushi has worked all over the world to sharpen his specialty as a high-flying wrestler. He has prepared himself in Lucha Libre, karate, and boxing, all of which fit his in-ring style. His character is a fervent youthful upstart who hopes to outshine the veteran Nakamura and prepare for younger, hungrier wrestlers who hope to take control of the best parts of the ascent.
Since his last match against Nakamura, Ibushi has moved from the Jr Heavyweight Division of NJPW to the heavyweight division due to a blackout and extended time out.
On the 4th day of NJPW G1 Peak 23, Ibushi and Nakamura had an extraordinary neck-and-neck race (Ibushi lost) compared to other games of the year. This match, however, made Ibushi extremely even as a great ordeal.
This year, Ibushi changed from the Jr. Heavyweight division to the Heavyweight division. His match at the G1 with Nakamura is the thing that made that change valid. Ibushi isn’t a major person, and he’s known for being an incredible high flyer, but on the other hand, he’s an amazing specialized laborer, and his match with Nakamura demonstrated that he stands his ground in the heavyweight division.
To truly turn into the best person, Ibushi needs a major win on a major occasion, and the best title wouldn’t hurt either. A prevail upon Nakamura at New Japan’s greatest show of the year for the IWGP Intercontinental Title, is only the win Ibushi needs.
Kota Ibushi Girlfriend
There’s no sign of a relationship or anyone in his life at the moment that he is romantically involved with. He is possibly single.