#putting 'you're mine to protect' in the footnote

[mofffun]

Rita: "Back down. I will protect you."

Luckyuro: "Ah... Is it alright if I fall in love?"

[breadclubrising]

This is a very good summary of what's happened so far with Kota Ibushi.

This is a really big deal, and I hope if you're a NJPW fan or a wrestling fan at all, you will pay attention to this.

If you're not aware of the situation, the tl;dr is that Ibushi has started posting receipts on twitter of what he feels is unfair and unsafe treatment from NJPW execs, and is speaking candidly, out of kayfabe, and naming names.

I'm sure that I've mentioned before being an Ibushi fan, but please believe me that I don't need to be a fan of him to be very concerned for him and utterly amazed by his bravery. He's said he's doing fine emotionally but this would be an immense pressure for anyone.

This is a much bigger deal than anything I've been aware of in my time as a NJPW fan. We only have Ibushi's side of the story so far, and there is surely more to come, so laying off speculation about the particulars is probably the healthy way to view this.

That said, this is a situation where an employee of a large corporation is taking an incredible personal risk to expose a culture of mistreatment. We DO need to avoid speculation, but everything else aside, maybe don't give a corporation too much leeway over a single employee risking their entire existence to bring things to light. Whatever happens, Ibushi has everything to lose, and NJPW is going to be fine.

How big a deal is this? I'm looking at it from the outside like everyone, but it just really seems like a BIG deal.

He has risked his career, his legacy, his standing in the industry, and all his friendships and connections to do this. He has implied a few times that he has reason to be concerned for his physical safety right now. No one is backing him publicly and he is saying no one is backing him privately either. I hope that's a lie meant to protect people who are backing him privately, but even in that best case scenario, it's not enough for him to feel confident saying that people privately support him. He said, "it's me alone against the promotion."

Even fans in Japan largely stay in kayfabe when they talk about wrestling, including on twitter, and he is very extremely breaking kayfabe in ways that are just simply not done. He is also breaking social codes left and right, publicly embarrassing his employer and mentioning other wrestlers who've had cheating scandals. (He's saying this to underscore his feeling that he's getting less understanding and forgiveness from NJPW—for being at a different promotion's show without permission, and for wanting to fully heal from an injury—than people who were publicly exposed as cheaters.)

He is at the very least fired from NJPW, and I can't imagine him ever being booked in any Japanese promotion again. He turns 40 in a little over a week; he does not have the years left in his career for this to blow over. He says he never wants to wrestle again, which could easily be true, but it's also what he kinda has to say publicly, even if he is talking to other promotions. It's likely that non-Japanese promotions are interested in him for now, but depending on what comes to light, he could possibly have exiled himself from the entire industry—this culture he's talking about runs pretty deep.

It's a big deal, is what I'm saying.

On twitter, the person who wrote this article (@thefeelite) and @golden_kuma (both links to their twitters) are putting in incredible amounts of work doing translations and giving really important context for what's happening with Ibushi and NJPW. They are just fans and they don't have all the info obviously, but they're both acting with a lot of restraint and avoiding too much speculation. (Both people I mentioned have tip jars in their twitter profiles, so please be kind to them if you can!)