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breadclubrising · 4 years ago

Note

Your thoughts on Ibushi feeling mentally weak because of his loss? I feel like he hurts(? If that makes sense like he is not being enough for his idol and that affects his performance in some kind of way, also DT proposing a new partner downplaying Tanahashi's effort and them being pushy in "beg us for the titles! Muahahaha" gives out they want it more than GA since they already decided not to go for a rematch until they win one. In the end just want to hear your thoughts Ibushi's storyline

Ha, Anon. You know not what you ask. I have been working on an essay about this for a while now (aren’t you shocked!), so I’ll excerpt some of it here. And now this is becoming an essay in its own right.

(I made a post about this and...)

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Aw thanks, Anon. I will try to address all of this. It is very long, and I’m sorry.

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I’ll start by saying this: Golden Ace made me stop watching wrestling for a while. It hurt that much. Just to put out there how many feelings I have about this.

First things first:

I do not know that I can convey with human language how much I love Hiroshi Tanahashi. My favorite readings of his character give him a tragic edge; to me the shining superstar is not nearly as interesting without his dark side: his need to control, his unwillingness to admit that he is slowing down, his single-minded view of what is Good and Right. His career arc—where he began as an iconoclast who in-kayfabe single-handedly saved NJPW from ruin and saved its wrestlers from the brutality of Inokiism, and has morphed into a well-meaning but narrow-minded patriarch who Knows Best, in part because of his being so beloved for what he achieved, gracelessly pretending he is not getting slower—is heartbreaking and beautiful. He beat the man only to become the man. He sacrificed so much and tries to impose his way on others as a way of justifying his sacrifices. I have... just so much written about Tana’s career arc. It’s one of my favorites ever.

And honestly, I love the story of Ibushi and Tanahashi as a story. It’s heartbreaking and beautifully performed. On an out-of-kayfabe level, I adore both of them and their ability to share of themselves so deeply while still making a story for public consumption.

But in kayfabe, as an Ibustan? Tana and I are gonna have a problem.

(so, so much more below this cut. you have been warned.)

My slacker genius hero

idk if you’ve noticed this, but Ibushi is consistently depicted as kind of weird. And I confess I’m projecting a bit here, but part of being Weird On Main is that you do it because you cannot be not-weird no matter how hard you try. Maybe sometimes you can contain it, but your default state is weird and whatever it is that normal people do, you do not understand it nor are you capable of doing it.

His entire career has been guided by his heart first and ambition second. That’s how he is, he follows his heart. The dearth of fucks he gives about what he should be doing is truly awe-inspiring. And that was probably for his own survival: when you are that fucking talented, what you should be doing is a weight you carry with you at all times. People constantly wondered why he didn’t try to ‘do better’ than DDT. As soon as he got to NJPW, people wondered why he wasn’t bulking up to move up to heavyweight. As soon as he was able to gain enough weight, he was in the G1 (where he promptly got a concussion).

He has always seemed to struggle with the weight of Living Up To His Potential, knowing that talent like his obligated him to answer for it, but also knowing that he doesn’t feel invested in things unless he’s enjoying himself. Career achievements were never much of a motivator for him—he wanted them, of course, but always ran into the wall of having to sacrifice his own happiness or mental health to get them. But like... normal people do that all the time, right? Sacrifice and hate their lives in order to reach some long-wanted goal? And like many Weirds, Kota seemed to spend a long time stuck in the tortuous I SHOULD be able to do this, normal people can do this brainspace.

The best example of this is something that Tanahashi would have admired: at one time, Kota was the first wrestler in a major promotion to have two home promotions. Like literally two full-time jobs as a wrestler; on the full-time roster at both DDT and at NJPW. What kind of wrestler is worth that physical risk and scheduling nightmare? What kind of wrestler is worth sharing as a commodity with one of your competitor promotions? Kota Fucking Ibushi is.

This burned him out quickly—he says, far more emotionally than physically—and he left wrestling altogether for a while, with the official excuse of finally getting surgery on a herniated disc in his neck. He wrestled at WWE for a bit before, shockingly, finding it too constrictive.

Finally, he decided to become a freelancer, which is A Choice when you are one of the most naturally talented people a sport has ever seen. It means you won’t be winning major titles and you won’t get a ton of investment from any one promotion, but it also means you get to control what you do, when you do it, and how much of it you do. Ibushi rejected any career path that would lead to traditionally-defined success, and he did so intentionally, in service of his mental health and ability to love his job.

Because like. He tried to do what a normal person with his level of talent would do, and he couldn’t stand it. It made him hate wrestling and his life. He pushed himself hard and he failed. Not meaning that he did not succeed in terms of his career—he was doing great when he left NJPW, and WWE offered him contract stipulations and money that were unheard of—but meaning his body and mind began failing him. Finally, he’d been forced to accept that the world’s expectations simply did not work for him. And then he had decided to be unashamed of that, and built himself a way of being that fit him, in a culture where obedience is a sign of maturity and poise (you can see it in the word: 大人しい; “quiet, docile, obedient”; literally “like an adult”).

The Ace and the Golden Star

Tanahashi and Ibushi may sort of be coming to a place of understanding now, but they haven’t historically seen each other as equals. Ibushi calls Tana a god, and Tana has always admired Ibushi’s talent, but been disappointed by his work ethic. (Hiroshi “Very Extremely Healthy And Non-Fucked-Up Relationship With Work Ethic” Tanahashi and Kota “Reacts Well To Being Told Not To Do Things” Ibushi.)

When Ibushi came back to NJPW for the G1 in 2017, he was coming back to it on his own terms, as a freelancer. He debuted his finisher Kamigoye (which, in case anyone has never read my blog before, means “go beyond god”) to beat Tanahashi during that same G1.

Ibushi lost his subsequent challenge for Tanahashi’s IWGP Intercontinental Championship, and at the end of the match, he tearfully embraced victorious Tanahashi, who patted his very worthy rival on the head. Ibushi felt humbled, like he hadn’t lived up to his potential. By losing, he felt he’d disappointed Tana.

And maybe Tana didn’t disagree. Tana spent the 2018 G1 (and the theme continued through the latter half of 2018) saying in his backstage comments that Kota Ibushi wasn’t living up to his potential. That he needed to work harder and put his nose to the grindstone to become Great.

Tanahashi genuinely admires Ibushi and is amazed by his talent, so he truly saw it all as coming from a place of love. He’s a big fan! He just wanted to see Ibushi do his best, and Tana has a really strong opinion about what “doing your best” means. In Tana’s mind, Ibushi (who one thousand percent Did Not Ask) needed to get serious and win some titles, needed to commit and work harder, devote more of his time and energy to wrestling, and generally follow exactly the path Tana himself had in order to succeed. And Tana didn’t mind saying so without invitation, and to the press.

Oh, and don’t forget that coincidentally Ibushi was on a tag team with Kenny Omega, whom Tana disliked for reasons he juuuust couldn’t put his finger on. (Later it came out: Kenny’s an immigrant! Ha ha! Great and good! I could do a whole other essay about this storyline. It was REALLY good and they had to abandon it completely.) Ibushi needed to get serious about his life and stop wasting time with that loser (IWGP Heavyweight Champion) Kenny Omega. Kenneth was dragging Ibushi down, said Tana, which—regardless of whether you agree with Tana or not—is uh... probably not an opinion you should just volunteer out loud to the press about someone you purportedly care about.

Tana was offering ‘helpful’ suggestions without realizing that not only was Ibushi happier than he’d ever been, he was happy because he had already tried the things Tana was helpfully suggesting, and had deliberately decided to do the opposite of that, so that he could be happy.

When your entire thing is in my career I do things on my terms, this is who I am and I’m not sorry, and someone is telling you you’re doing your career wrong, it’s gonna sting extra. Because you’re a fucking weirdo, and if you could do things the expected conventional way, you would in a heartbeat. So the thing that you are “doing wrong” is a thing you have fought tooth and nail to do in a way that works for you. If it meant being shamed for it, it didn’t matter, because there was no other way you could have done it.

So, Tana didn’t know it, I don’t think, but his ‘the way you’re managing your career is wrong’, tragically, really meant ‘the way you are is wrong’, when applied to Ibushi.

(And? When you’re doing it wrong and part of what you’re doing right now is being extremely fucking gay? That “get serious about your life” plays into a whole mess of extremely unfortunate tropes about gays. I have no idea if these tropes exist in Japan as well, but western gays are deeply familiar with them. Of course I don’t at all believe Tana meant it that way, but unfortunately, as A Gay, it’s too familiar for me not to hear it there. Feels bad man.)

YOU’RE NOT MY DAD

After all that well-meaning (?) shit talking, Ibushi and Tanahashi faced each other in the 2018 G1 finals. Ibushi lost. Was Tana right about all that untapped potential? Was Ibushi once again humbled because god beat his ass?

Last time Tana beat Ibushi, they hugged, Tanahashi magnanimously recognizing the great effort on Ibushi’s part. This time, he held out his hand for a handshake. They’ve come so far as rivals. Right?

Ibushi looked at it, then held up both hands in front of him, shaking his head and backing away. He said backstage that Kenny would have hit Tanahashi, and Tanahashi clearly wanted a handshake as equals. But, he said, he is not Kenny, nor is he Tanahashi. He does things on his terms.

He didn’t care if it looked disrespectful: Tanahashi’s handshake was a patronizing offer of forgiveness for Ibushi’s failure to live up to Tana’s ideal. Ibushi’s rejection was not disrespect, but demanding respect from someone who had explicitly told him he did not deserve it from them unless he became a different human being than the one he’s fought to be.

Ibushi left with his head high, so defiant in his weirdness that even if God Himself says you need to change who you are to be worthy of my approval and acceptance Ibushi says, actually the way I am is great, thanks, and I will love myself whether you approve or not.

I can’t say how much he means to me, because of that. Him rejecting fucking god telling him to be someone else—someone who did not love himself—was more than I could have ever dreamed I’d get out of wrestling. A man who had found, as I had in my life, that no amount of wanting to be able to do things the way that normal people do them would grant that ability, had then decided to find a way that would work for him, and do that. And so had I, and around the same time (Kota and I are also p much the same age). And then, when defeated, instead of allowing someone to say ‘this is because you did not conform,’ he said ‘I cannot be truly defeated because tomorrow, I will still do things the way that makes me happy and fulfilled.’ I could write so much more but I’ll stop here: it meant everything to me.

I mean... dad?

Fast forward to the 2019 G1. A lot had changed. Ibushi had signed full-time with NJPW, much to Tana’s satisfaction. In the leadup to Wrestle Kingdom that year, Tana had very deliberately and openly used Ibushi as a cudgel against Kenny Omega, saying Omega did not deserve his partner, Ibushi, and did not deserve his home, Japan. He had told Omega, who had dutifully worked his way up the NJPW ranks to become the most beloved gaijin in NJPW’s history, that he should not be the third Musketeer (the big 3 guys in the promotion from each generation; the others of this generation being Naito and Okada). Putting a gaijin in that role is Not Done, and Kenny was already Top Gaijin, which was the highest a gaijin should be allowed to go. Further, Tana believed that Ibushi, a part-time freelancer who was not signed with NJPW, should be the third Musketeer, because he is Japanese and Kenny isn’t.

In kayfabe, Tana had negged Ibushi’s Golden Lover right out of Japan, but NJPW seemed pretty determined to erase the memory of Omega, so Ibushi and Tanahashi were on friendly-ish terms,

“Everything I am begins and ends with Tanahashi,” Ibushi said before the match. Kota won, which almost everyone was expecting, but the real question we all had: how would he treat the Ace once he’d won? Once he embraced him, once he’d pushed him away. Who was Kota Ibushi now, in relation to god? And in relation to the company itself, which Ibushi had recently committed to ‘for the rest of my life’—and which Tanahashi personified? Victorious Ibushi crawled over to Tanahashi and gratefully clasped his hands in fervent appreciation, foreheads together, Tanahashi smiling approvingly, patting his head like ya did good kid. Later backstage, Tana said something like “I sensed a lot of pain in you when we fought, but I can tell you used it to overcome your shortcomings, let go of what was holding you back, and reach your potential.” And at the end of the match, Ibushi had seemed to be in agreement, looking prostrate and humbled, seeking forgiveness for his past sins.

I was saying ‘i-BOO-shi’

Except, like… his “past sins” were: soul-searching and learning what was important to him. Healing physically and emotionally from burnout. Making his way back, on his own terms and no one else’s, to the career he’d had to leave to save himself. Reuniting with a his lost love—not without complication, but undeniably making him happier than he’d been in years, finding the joy in wrestling again, giving himself the emotional energy to invest more and more in his career, but smartly this time, protecting himself. And then telling the Ace of New Japan that he would continue to do things his own way, and no one else’s.

He did all of this against the backdrop of a culture that punishes individualism or makes it a spectacle. He asserted himself nevertheless, because it was either that or a breakdown. And all of those things were what Tanahashi felt he should be apologetic for, what he had wanted Ibushi to excise from his wrestling and his personality in order to Reach His Potential.

And... it worked. Ibushi played by the rules, conformed to expectation, and not only did he win, he was accepted and forgiven for his waywardness. Turns out, Tana was right all along: Ibushi needed to be less himself in order to be truly successful. Not only that, through career success and sacrificing the things that made him happy (because they also made him most himself which, again, was bad), he was finally truly fulfilled.

After an entire career’s worth of refusing for his own sake to do what others expected of him, he finally lived every Weird Person’s wildest fantasy, wherein we sacrifice every strange thing about ourselves that we’ve spent our lives learning to love, in order to Conform, but instead of blowing up in our faces, THIS TIME, FINALLY, it worked, and at long last we found that being Normal truly does bring happiness and success and our parents finally love us. He’s through the looking glass, but he can’t hear us on the Weird side anymore, and doesn’t even remember that there ever were Weirds. And now all the Weirds back home have seen the horrible truth, that changing who you are fundamentally in order to be obedient is… actually the right thing to do, which of course means they were right about us all along. We aren’t good enough just as we are, fundamentally; our parents were justified in withholding unconditional love and everyone else was right to mock us. We throw all our Kurt Vonnegut books into the garbage and we weep.

That was the story.

So at first I kind of half-heartedly tried to convince myself that all of this was that thing where no matter how much sincere emotional work you do, you will never stop secretly craving your parents’ approval; we are practically hard-wired to want it. And then I moved toward seeing the grateful gesture as a sort of forgiveness, a recognition that his pedestal of Tanahashi had finally toppled and shattered. After all, Ibushi is the sort of dude who got all the way down on the ground to bow to both Nagata and Yoshi-Hashi after beating them in G1 matches, and that certainly wasn’t an apology, it was humble gratitude for their work. So maybe this was a true going beyond god—Thank you truly. I don’t need you anymore.

But... it probably wasn’t that, and it was hard to believe my own bullshit. Ibushi is also the sort of dude who, in his first entrance upon his return in 2017, had gotten all the way down on the ground to bow to fans in deep apology for having been gone for two years; ie apologizing for caring for himself. Heh. But uh... maybe this Tana thing was just a heat-of-the-moment thing, like a quasi-kayfabe act of true honesty?

LOLNO! Time for Golden Ace to immediately win the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Championships, thus not only cementing Ibushi’s return to the Well-Behaved fold and certifying Tanahashi as The Guy Who Was Right About You, but also having all of these things be kayfabe events that happened within the span of a little more than two years:

Ibushi gets an emotional gay reunion with his tag team and life partner

Tanahashi uses Ibushi as a weapon against said partner, who is forced to leave the company, vindicating Tana’s opinions about both Ibushi and Omega (I don’t care how much you hate Omega, that is a shitty thing to do even if we only care about Ibushi’s feelings.)

Ibushi and Tanahashi win the tag team belts that the Golden Lovers never even got to challenge for

COOL AND GOOD. LOVE THAT.

That story really hurt. I couldn’t watch them be a team.

Haha unless? This current story really hurts too, honestly. But maybe it’s making the past hurt a little less. MAYBE.

So, Tana has been getting physically stiffer and slower for a while now, and now it’s kinda becoming hard to ignore.

And maybe, hanging out with Tanahashi seemed cool at first but then when Ibushi realized he’d excised every interesting thing about himself in order to conform to what Tana expected of him, it started to wear on him. I’m hoping I can be allowed to have that interpretation.

So Ibushi’s forced to be like ‘hey I need you to step up your game bro,’ which, if Ibushi ever fantasized about turning the rhetorical tables on Tanahashi’s criticism, doesn’t seem to feel nearly as good as he’d hoped it would. It feels bad for both of them.

And Tana seems humbled, because he’s been so embarrassed and stubborn about admitting that maybe, possibly, potentially, he could be slightly perhaps showing signs of failing to be immortal. But maybe he also now sees that his ‘tough love’ criticism of Ibushi didn’t make Ibushi better, ultimately, it just made him care about and value the same stuff Tana does. And oops, now maybe Ibushi has ideas about success that don’t really take into account the limitations Tana has, even if he’s worked very very very hard to try to push through them until he was forced to admit that he needed to find another way. This sounds familiar and I hate it!

Tanahashi is now trying to find his way. And Ibushi, once humbly appreciating Nagata and Yoshi-Hashi after beating them, is now hard-eyed and almost deliberately lacking awareness of others’ need for compassion. Tana got what he wanted—Ibushi in his own image—but now he’d probably be a lot better off with the sparkly-eyed mischief-maker who doesn’t care as much about titles as he cares about loving wrestling.

Of course, Kota very much had his own reasons for doing this too—he felt the pressure to win titles to match his talent at least as much as Tana felt it for him—but it’s still kinda heartbreaking that he became the determined and serious never-getting-too-close-to-anyone company man that Tana envisioned him as, and then it worked. That’s a completely new way of judging his worth as a person, when he’d spent his career before that judging his worth by how happy and fulfilled he was. So when he loses now, he’s even more hard on himself because he’s also letting Tana down, and Tana really believed in him.

But I think he’s also starting to get uncomfortable, because he’s getting dangerously close to re-learning a lesson he has already learned pretty painfully. He’s done all this work and sacrifice only to find that—shockingly— winning and being seen as a Top Guy is still not worth your happiness and mental health.

And it was PRETTY shitty of him to walk away from Tana getting a beatdown! That felt VERY bad. But Tana has been failing to admit that he can’t do the shit he used to do, to his own detriment. IMO that doesn’t justify Ibushi leaving him to deal with shit on his own but also, I kinda don’t blame him if he feels resentful of Tana for asking him to be a different person in order to fit within Tana’s vision of him, all while Tana refuses to admit that he himself does not fit the vision he has for himself, which is ultimately making it harder to do the thing Ibushi now feels more driven to do than ever—partially because of Tana’s influence—which is win. WHEW.

FEELS BAD.

But! Hey! Then Tana did exactly what Ibushi asked and like cut a little fat and got more serious about his hair and tan. And then he got a pin on Dangerous Tekkers and now he deserves a title shot. And he’s like ‘Ibushi in Soviet Russia god stans u’ and Ibushi is like “excellent sir, ready 2 only care about my personal success!” So now they’re friends again? And they’re even, because a person not accepting that they have to conform to others’ expectations, and a person not accepting that they are aging like every human being does, are totally morally equivalent? And all that nuanced storytelling was totally in my head?

Yay?

So where is this going?

Bro idk. I’m so deflated by this storyline it’s hard to think of a scenario that would make me stop being devastated by potentially having THE major reason wrestling means so much to me (Kota Ibushi’s weirdness and perpetual defiance of expectation, for the sake of fiercely and unwaveringly committing to himself and the belief that he deserves to be valued for who he is, his hard-fought path that he carved for himself when he saw that he couldn’t do stuff the way he was Supposed To, succeeding because he is unapologetically honoring that in a world that demands conformity and obedience and punishes deviation; PLUS GAY, which makes everything even more poignant I’M TOTALLY FINE) permanently written out of existence.

If Kota learned that forcing yourself to be normal 1. totally works, 2. brings instant success, and 3. was the right thing to do all along because the way you were was stupid and foolish and the fact that you ever thought you should be accepted, let alone allowed to feel okay about yourself, let alone happy, when you can’t even do the most basic human functions correctly, just goes to highlight how deeply alien and unacceptable you are, fundamentally, as a person LIKE I SAID I’M FINE IT’S FINE, then I should probably stop caring about wrestling and get to figuring how to live a 9-5 existence and how not to care about things to a degree that makes other people laugh at me and not use ten-dollar words and stop making men feel nervous because I’m way smarter than they are, and also i guess have a dog and find a monogamous husband whom will get me pregnant with some kids, and I’ll go to bed at a reasonable hour! Because! If Kota can do it and be successful then goddammit I can too.

I’m fine.

But idk. It’s hard to imagine why they’d do this little rift storyline and have nothing come of it except Golden Ace are better bros than ever before. I don’t even know what I want. Right now it feels like this arc is about Tana’s development, and Kota is kinda a supporting character.

Maybe it felt valuable to in-kayfabe acknowledge the fact that Tana sometimes looks like his knees and hips don’t bend, but ultimately show that the Ace has still got it! And also Kota Ibushi is a selfish asshole who talks down to his elders. I mean, a stern but fair leader? I mean a driven, tough-love champion?

Maybe Tana will fail in the title match despite his cosmetic improvements, because he has still fundamentally failed to earnestly engage with his limitations.

Maybe he really has accepted and learned to work with a new reality and now he’s on fire.

I think the only way to make this feel satisfying would be to turn it into a long-term rivalry of some flavor, where Tana had the Ace Wars with Okada, now he can have a God War with Ibushi. When Tana can no longer be NJPW’s heart and soul, I don’t think anyone can fill those shoes. But he has already in many ways passed on the soul of NJPW to Okada which was cemented with the Ace Wars, so maybe this is how he’ll eventually (hopefully a while from now) pass on the heart of NJPW to Ibushi; make Ibushi earn it the same way Okada had to unequivocally prove he was worthy of Ace, including to Tanahashi himself.

I could see a rivalry where they go their separate ways but are grateful for having learned some things together. They truly both feel like equals now, and they support each other living their best lives. This would be a rivalry where they constantly push each other to be better; Ibushi figuring out a way to be true to himself and still win, and Tanahashi figuring out how to have a glorious, once-in-a-century late career and gaining new vitality as he throws off the weight of pretending he’s still in his prime.

RACHEL ARE WE GETTING A HEEL TURN OR NO

ORRRR I guess one of them could turn heel, because they’re both the shiniest babyfaces and that would rule. While they both know how to heel when needed and take up the mantle gleefully, neither has had a proper heel run really.

In normal times I’d say ‘but I don’t really think it’s likely that either of them will turn heel’, but these are not normal times. I truly don’t know what to think or expect. Bullet Club is missing its heavy hitters and may be for a while (can it be Yujiro’s time to shine at last??), which is why EVIL and Dick Togo are there now. In a way I could see a heel Tanahashi take advantage of that power vacuum and it would be incredibly badd ass.

I could see Tanahashi resenting Ibushi and getting real mean about it, doing that thing where someone provokes Ibushi until they go too far and get rekt. Like going back and using all that ‘i’m your father and i disapprove’ bullshit he did. Ibushi wins the HW title, Tana challenges and loses bc he makes the same old ‘but i’m actually 27 years old still’ miscalculations that have been a problem for Golden Ace. But he gets his groove back and eventually beats Ibushi for the HW title, and gets a later-career run he deserves (i lov u tana).

But... it actually would NOT rule at all to see Ibushi turn heel.

Which is a major shame, because you have no idea how on board I am, in theory, with him donning the black and gold, dyeing his hair back to black, being sadistic all of the time, thinking up tag team moves for him and ZSJ, getting evil smiles of approval from The King, and somehow becoming good at not only talking but saying mean things, which he never ever does even when people are mean to him. In a just world, I could be very down with Suzuki-gun Ibushi.

But we do not live in a just world, we live on Earth in the system Sol in the year 2020 AD. If Ibushi did a heel turn now, it would most likely be in further service of the narrative that his desire for independence and happiness was selfish and bad, his individualism and unapologetic strangeness were embarrassing, and Tana was right to tell him to stop being gay and start destroying his body more. Because a dude that disrespects his elders and role models is Not A Good Dude. Because rebellious people whose biggest act of rebellion is loving themselves when everything around them tells them they shouldn’t are Wrong, Actually.

So as much as in theory I’d love to see him in Suzuki-gun, in practice I would probably never be able to watch wrestling again because it validated the worst fears I have about how I move through the world. If Kota Ibushi is Wrong for being weird then perhaps truly nothing is salvageable for me about this horror show of a planet. (Also, practically speaking, the Bullet Club being down so many folks might mean that the other true heel faction is less likely to get new members.)

Like, in-kayfabe, yeah, this story already feels like a betrayal. But also out of kayfabe, if it turned out that the Lesson was ‘if you conform you will be successful and loved’? And Kota took part in that story? I know it sounds extremely well-adjusted of me to say, but I’d feel a little like he betrayed me; showing me it was okay to be weird so convincingly and then going ‘actually I always hated being weird, I don’t regret giving up everything I thought I loved about myself, in order to be normal. which means not only is it possible to overcome being the off-putting freak you are, but you are failing at doing it every single day.’ Or—perhaps even worse—the story I thought I saw, that made me feel seen (like, actually), was never there to begin with. Which... would mean that the story I saw was actually just what actually happened in real life to a person I admire so much, who has brought me so much joy. I don’t think I could take any of those outcomes and still enjoy wrestling.

That’s totally a normal thing to feel, right?

Epilogue in which ya girl has been exposed to too many harmful chemicals recently

In order to soothe my faltering ability to find joy in wrestling, I shall note a very cracky theory, which is The Middle Path:

Ibushi’s a strange dude, and he plays by his own rules. He does not like factions; he’s in Hontai more or less by default... but NJPW’s resident Island of Misfit Toys faction is down one heavyweight, and was already very small.

Perhaps Ibushi and Tanahashi will agree to disagree about whether you should be weird and happy or drill your body into a fine pulp until you die, and their rivalry will take a more official form when Ibushi’s arc comes full circle: where he once graciously tried to accept his old friend back into the fold so many years ago, his old friend is now well and truly the Shuyaku, and welcomes him, fist raised, to the loving arms of the Weirds. Milano Collection AT weeps because he can now stan more fervently. La Estrella Dorada Ingobernable has, after all, always been the very definition of ungovernable. (This seems unlikely because of Ibushi’s gr9 rivalries with SANADA and Naito, but in a world where EVIL joined Bullet Club, do we really know what’s real anymore?)

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WHEW! Anon, if somehow there is anything you feel I did not address sufficiently, please let me know. Otherwise, as always, thank you for giving me an opportunity to write about something that interests me, and I am sorry for who I am as a person.

#kota ibushi #hiroshi tanahashi #njpw #well you asked #and i didn't even get into tana's history with nakamura and the ibushi and nakamura parallels and tana's attempts to be Aloof aaaaaaa #i have long been wanting to write a book or something about the little constellation of tanahashi - nakamura - ibushi #featuring kenny omega with important appearances by okada - shibata - naito #this is 5.5k words #why do you guys put up with me honestly #who am i even writing for?#(me. always me.)#it's true about the harmful chemicals #hahahahaha acab #the lowkey anti-immigrant storyline they were doing w/ tana and kenny was SO good but they had to stop bc kenny was leaving #immigrants: we do not complete the job #anyway i love you tell me if you guys read or liked this

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