Stories That Are True To Our Hearts: Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi

The Golden Lovers are the tag team of Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi. All good tag teams have a gimmick – the thing that ties them together and makes their relationship make sense. Many tag teams are based on friendship, or brotherhood – sometimes there’s a common interest or attitude – both like drinking beer or wearing glitter or giving semi-consensual massages. The Golden Lovers are different. Apart from the fact that independently, both Omega and Ibushi are easily two of the most talented and acclaimed wrestlers working today, their gimmick is unique.

Their gimmick is that they’re in love.

Romantic love – even cishet romance – is a rare narrative in wrestling. Being in love requires a public vulnerability that seems inimical to the posturing toughness of wrestling. Announcing that you are in love invites the world to treat you as unserious, no matter how serious your feelings are.

Romance, in wrestling, often involves soap opera style betrayal – your wrestling wedding is interrupted by a kidnapping, your romantic partner turns on you in a fit of sneering, lustful jealousy and sides with your rival. Queer romance is even more tragic, with common kayfabe narratives of ridiculous unrequited desire, repulsive advances, abusive rejections.

Queerness has been a joke or a threat in wrestling for years. Heels might be androgynous or queer coded – same sex relationships are punchlines or punishments.

There have probably always been queer pro wrestlers – rumours aside, it’s statistically impossible that all of them are straight. Recently, it’s even socially acceptable to be an openly queer wrestler: Sonny Kiss, Killian McMurphy, Jack Sexsmith, Kris Wolf, Rosa Mendes, Paige, Sonya Deville – all out and successful.

The Golden Lovers – neither of whom have officially self-identified as queer, or straight, though Kenny’s made a lot of references to dating both men and women – have, over nearly a decade, made queer romance the center of their professional personas in a way no tag team ever has.

There are very few wrestling romances with happy endings, let alone queer romances. However, the Golden Lovers have avoided this cliche, treated their relationship with total solemnity and sincerity – even when they were on opposite sides of the ring.

Love is stupid – it makes the lover stupid. It’s also necessary, empowering, and overwhelming. The Golden Lovers’ public performance of same-sex love as something that strengthens them both, as something positive that enables them both to find success and joy and acceptance, is revolutionary. They’ve rejected the binary systems of heel and face, the simple loss and victory in the ring, to create something more complex and engaging and optimistic than we’ve ever had in the past.

The presentation of this entirely new perspective, this positive model of what we can do and be, the promise of change and the skill to back it up, is utopian in the political sense. Utopia is an ideal version of society – utopian thinking rejects the idea that we must accept our lot, that this is the best it’s going to get, and conjures new, better visions of the future.

Both Omega and Ibushi have done a lot individually – and maybe would have been as famous without each other’s influence. However, I want to talk about their performed relationship, their epic romance on the wrestling stage, and how their stated desires are utopian in a way that has made them the most important wrestlers working today.

The beginning

Their origins seem – unreal. If I wrote a novel about queer wrestlers, I wouldn’t write it this way – it’s too unbelievable.

Kenny Omega, born Tyson Smith, was an ambitious, clever, hard working boy from Winnipeg, who quit a possible hockey career to be a wrestler. He’s incredibly athletic, creative, loves story telling, looks like a pre-Raphaelite cherub who got yoked. His matches are gymnastic, full of clowning, big audience interactions and moves cribbed from Street Fighter. He’s a huge nerd who loves video games and wanted to be a Ninja Turtle when he grew up.

He asked for his release from WWE developmental – Bill Demott, the head trainer, reportedly terrorised trainees. Omega, who had been handpicked for the training, cited not the endless drills or favouritism but the fact he wasn’t getting enough opportunities for creativity. He went on to work the indies with the sole goal of going to Japan because that’s where the inspirational wrestling was happening.

Already, alone, we get a sense of a man who will not accept the status quo. To pursue a career in wrestling at all is a mad dream – and to treat it as a kind of method performance art is even madder. Wrestling as it is, North America, WWE (the wrestling promotion that presents itself as the sole provider of product), were not for Kenny Omega. He has different ideals, a different idea of what the profession could be, and by rejecting, at the beginning of his career, what is to most others the final goal, he establishes himself as a utopian realist – he invents new goals and sets about making them accessible.

Through persistence, and a video of himself fighting in a cabin and lake, he gets an opportunity in Japan in 2008. He’s so dedicated to making a good impression he asks to fight one of the independent scene’s champions in a match outside his comfort zone – a two out of three falls count anywhere match.

That champion was Kota Ibushi: a strange kid who wanted to become a wrestler because that was the closest possible alternative to being a super saiyan. He didn’t go to any particular wrestling school, instead had done kickboxing and some formal training, then worked his way up the indies. He’s a star. He’s literally called the Golden Star. He is sickeningly talented. His moves are flawless. He’s very funny, the way Buster Keaton is. Also, please don’t mistake this for personal preference, because I’m about to tell you an objective fact: he’s devastatingly attractive.

Apart from his astonishing in ring skill and excellent comedic timing, Ibushi is kind of a disaster. He’s famous for getting lost and being late for appointments, including his own contract signings. He dresses solely in bougie designer jeans and basketball shorts. He can’t cut a promo to save his life, but is so good at actual wrestling that it doesn’t matter. He’s sort of obtuse when he speaks in interviews, either strangely direct or incredibly vague. He apparently sent applications to a few different wrestling companies but either messed up the paperwork or wrote the wrong address, and ended up in DDT – a promotion best known for comedy matches.

The insider joke is that Ibushi landed in DDT because their administrative expectations were low and their willingness to incorporate insane stunts was high. However, he was able, in DDT, to flex creative muscle he would not have been allowed to in other companies. It wasn’t prestigious or all that well known when he joined, but, like Omega, he had goals that were distinct from most other wrestlers. He didn’t want to simply be secure in a role, a cog in a larger machine creating product – he wanted to expand the borders of what wrestling could look like.

Kenny had apparently seen clips of Kota fighting in DDT – in the ring, in a supermarket, an office, throwing logs and watermelons, aiming fireworks at his opponents – crazy, funny, wild stuff. He had challenged Ibushi specifically, in a delightfully awkward little video filmed in a Winnipeg alleyway. Kota apparently saw the clips Kenny sent and agreed immediately.

It’s hard to imagine their first meeting. They’ve seen each other in grainy amateur videos. At this time, Kota speaks no English – Kenny speaks limited Japanese. Another bilingual wrestler, Michael Nakazawa, translated for them. They’ve known each other maybe a few days by the time of their first match.

Their collaboration, this first match, is shocking – they take risks, make jokes, do stunts, work together perfectly. It looks equally dangerous and fun. Kenny piledrives Kota into a pile of chairs on concrete outside. Kota Phoenix Splashes off a vending machine onto Kenny. The camera loses track of them, because they’re moving around so much. In the end, Kota wins, and then – sits next to Kenny.

He just sits on the mat with him, instead of standing up and celebrating his win. Kota waits for Kenny, who is overcome with emotion. When they gradually get up, they hug. Kenny cries in the ring – out of joy. This effusiveness is characteristic of Kenny, who, even in WWE’s Deep South Wrestling, wore his emotions on his sleeve. In his after match comments, Kota, who is famously critical of everyone, including himself, says “I love Kenny Omega!”

These two extremely strange men from very different circumstances have a lot in common. They both have enormous talent, but more importantly, extremely high expectations, and similar goals. They don’t want their matches to look like anyone else’s. They want wrestling to be exciting, to be full of emotion and top rope moonsaults. They want to tell stories that everyone can understand.

Their first match wins Japan Indie Awards Best Bout. It’s a big deal. This means DDT, and the Japanese scene, now wants Kenny back.

Kenny should be, on his return, an excellent foil and rival for Kota. Kota is a skyrocketing talent who should continue to make his name in singles matches in bigger promotions.

Instead, by 2009, they’re a tag team.

Apparently, they insisted on being a tag team. This makes no business sense – tag teams are rarely the main event, are harder to book than singles wrestlers, even with their skill. Kota is an established talent, Kenny had been to Japan once.

This was not a business decision, but a creative one. They knew they could do more with each other than against each other. Someone calls them the Golden Twins. They call themselves the Golden Lovers.

Similar to insisting that they’re a tag team, labelling themselves Lovers doesn’t seem like a financially motivated decision – but it’s an excellent creative one. There had never been anything like this – two men who care about each other romantically, treated not as disgusting, or a just a punchline, or solely sexualised, but as an integral part of their gimmick. It’s just part of who they are, as performers.

They are, from the outset, a great team. In their earliest matches, we see that they’ve already got double team moves, all flashy and fun – including the Cross Slash, where they take simultaneous triangle moonsaults off opposite turnbuckles, and the Golden Shower – a perfectly identical double 450 splash from the top rope. They keep hugging at the end of their matches. Kenny, becoming increasingly confident in Japanese, takes over promos, talks a mile a minute, while Kota gets to stand to the side and nod, sometimes taking the microphone to state that he has nothing to say. They’re fun and funny, They’re brilliant and beloved.

A few times, they kiss: accidentally of course. Keep in mind, this is Japan – public kissing is taboo – and this is DDT, an absurdist comedy focused promotion which features famous gay panic act Danshoku Dieno as one of their top stars. One of Dieno’s big moves is non-consensual kissing of men, both opponents and audience members, who then wipe their mouths, repulsed. This is meant to be a joke. When he faces the Golden Lovers, he forces them to kiss each other instead. It’s still a joke, but a different kind. They seem surprised by their own reactions, look at each other with shy astonishment – like courting children.

There’s something very innocent about the Golden Lovers in these early days. Simultaneously, they cheat constantly. It’s hilarious, because they’re fresh faced fan favourites – but double team moves, which is what they’re famous for, are all technically cheating. So are all their highly homoerotic double pins. Kenny does a thing where he yells for his opponent to stop, as though there’s some kind of emergency, then pele kicks them in the face. There’s a match where Ibushi held an opponent’s nose closed during a submission hold: cheating!

What makes it interesting is that they’re still never properly heels, the way most wrestlers who cheat this much would be. They mostly sell this cheating as necessary not because they hate to lose, but because they’re just so in love! Ibushi must leap into the ring before the tag because Kenny is in danger! Kenny must stay in after he’s tagged out because Ibushi needs a boost! There’s a match where they appear on opposing tag teams, and spend half the match refusing to hurt each other at all, engaging in the gentlest of headlocks and miming joint manipulation, turning on their official partners to team up – later, after Kenny has tried a surprise roll up, Kota apologises to him before climbing the turnbuckle for a splash. At the end of that match, they help each other out of the ring, conflict immediately forgiven.

The Golden Lovers didn’t invent team work or partners showing concern for each other – but they framed it so intentionally and explicitly as a romantic team, as romantic concern. It feels, even when it’s funny, true. This is the power of the Golden Lovers: to take something as well trodden as the tag team dynamic and make it feel different, new, exciting, and most importantly, honest. Even when they’re cheesy, they’re representing what seems to be true love. Here, in this team, is what Barthes identified as the interesting thing of wrestling: a light without shadow that generates an emotion without reserve.

However, instead of the emotion being pride for a hero or contempt for a heel, the Golden Lovers introduce something new to the world of wrestling: the strange and tender joy of watching people care for each other.

The middle

Let’s pretend you’re a wrestling fan who thinks teamwork sucks and queer romance is bad: are these weirdos worth your time? I’m afraid they absolutely are. Both being a tag team and being self-proclaimed lovers should sideline them – but their persistence and overwhelming talent made them impossible to sideline. Their comedy never compromises their skills in the ring. They’re too good to ignore.

Image result for golden lovers iwgp tag belts

The first thing that put them on the mainstream map was winning the New Japan Pro Wrestling’s IWGP Junior tag belts in 2010. They defeated Apollo 55, a team composed of Ryusuke Taguchi and Prince Devitt (aka Finn Balor), who are, in their own right, an incredible team with good comedy chops.

This match is light on comedy – New Japan wouldn’t let their belts be handed over for anything less than serious business. Apollo 55 are popular, but so are the Golden Lovers. Ibushi and Omega are fast and strong and have the audience on side. Ibushi kicks Taguchi in the chest, Omega hauls Devitt onto his shoulders. They get simultaneously drop kicked by Taguchi and simultaneously reach for each other. It seems, after they collect a tope con hilo from Devitt, that they might be in trouble, but then rally, do a Cross Slash, and a Golden Shower – which the audience love, because it looks excellent. There’s another assist move where Omega hadoukens Taguchi into Ibushi’s arms, and Ibushi slides into a bridging dragon suplex. It’s so fun. There’s a dozen near falls and last second saves, and eventually, Ibushi does one of his dazzling Phoenix Splash finishers and pins Devitt. The Golden Lovers embrace, in the ring, on their knees, clumsy and delighted.

It’s rare that people not signed to NJPW get a run with their belts, but the Golden Lovers are exceptional. It was a huge match in a huge hall, and they’ve done an excellent job – but they always do. In their world of wrestling, every match is important, every match requires them to lay it all on the line.

This is also, however, part of Ibushi’s climb in NJPW – Japan’s largest and most prestigious wrestling company. From 2008, he appeared in many NJPW events, including Best of the Super Juniors, Dominion, and in 2013, after putting on some weight, the G1 – all significant and well watched events. He takes and loses the IWGP Junior singles belt several times. He’s gaining momentum, which Kenny isn’t, in Japan, not yet – he’s still a foreigner, still splitting his time between promotions.

They’re still working, both together and apart, in DDT and other indies. There’s a bit of a problem here, in that when they are together, no one can really match them for talent – they can be matched for theatricality and chemistry and goofiness, but no other tag team can beat them for just being really good at wrestling. They defend, then lose, the NJPW belts, and for a while, are the best tag team on the scene who happen to be signed to a weird sideshow of a promotion in DDT. There’s not a lot of forward momentum to being big fish in a small pond – they lean into comedy matches, into exhibitions, ever more outrageous and over the top – but there’s no sense of challenge, or development, in their partnership.

So, of course, they have to face each other.

This was something they seem to have resisted. It’s been four years since their first match, that match of the year, and it’s on one of the biggest stages DDT can offer.

Omega vs Ibushi at Budokan is legendary. Better writers than me have discussed it. I recommend you find and watch it for yourself, because, like much of their work, it has to be seen to be believed. Their match in 2008 was fun. This match is frightening.

What’s most interesting to me is not just that Omega later describes it as involving some of the scariest bumps he’s ever received, or the infamous, unauthorised second story balcony moonsault that got Ibushi banned from the venue for six years. (The official recording available on the DDT streaming site is edited to cut the balcony dive – apparently too edgy for a company that used to pitch Minoru Suzuki against the Mecha-Mummy, that has awarded a belt to a stuffed animal multiple times.) These terrifying spots that induce a kind of anxious euphoria in the watcher make it one of the best matches I’ve ever seen.

However, the most interesting thing to me was the context of the match. If members of a tag team face each other, there should be some lead up – some establishing scuffle or simmering feud that bubbles over, so they can be rivals, even for a moment. I can’t find any evidence for this. There’s a promo from Kenny, a week before Budokan, where he says he’s worried, but he’ll try his best. All the DDT wrestlers sing and dance to encourage him. Kota, who had been in an earlier match, enters and hugs him.

This feels almost like a breach of kayfabe – that they’re facing each other is not because they want to fight, but because their company insisted.

Kota wins, by the way. Kota must win, really. Kenny’s very talented, but Kota is a beast, in this match.

If you’ve seen some of his matches, you might know what I’m talking about. Kota Ibushi, very handsome babyface clown who hates public speaking and loves flips, is, occasionally, a monster heel.

He’s not ever a monster for long – usually just a little while, towards the end of a very tough match. He’s not the kind of performer who seems to enjoy inflicting violence, either. It’s just that, sometimes, the man goes away, and only violence is left. He’d done this to Prince Devitt, he’ll do this to Tanahashi, and in this match, he does it to Kenny.

Kenny can be scary, and he is, a little, in this match – but Kenny’s at his best when he’s being sincere, and he’s not sincerely scary the way Kota can be. Monster Kota seems inviolate even when he’s exhausted, even though his nose is bleeding. In comparison, Kenny makes his own suffering look emphatic and exquisite.

So – Kota wins. But like their first match, he doesn’t celebrate.

He stays on the ground. Kenny seems to be trying to get up, but Kota pulls him down, holds him down, puts his head on Kenny’s chest, ear to his heart. Kenny touches his Kota’s hair.

It’s not for the cameras, the audience. They’re turned into each other. It’s a long, intimate moment, belied by the fact that they’re surrounded by people.

Eventually, Kota rolls away, goes to take his belts – he can barely stand. The monster is gone again, the man is back. Kenny is still on the ground, and the camera fades to black.

There wasn’t any immediate aftermath to the match, either – no resentment or discussion of what will happen next time. Budokan doesn’t come up again, in either of their promos, for another six years.

They go back to being the best tag team on the scene, with their gimmick of being men in love with each other and wrestling. Kenny is ringside, supporting Kota when he faces IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada, a year to the day after their Budokan match. When Ibushi loses, Omega jumps into the ring, immediately checking on him, becoming upset when Okada puts a foot on Ibushi in a taunting victory. They fight even more ostentatious no DQ matches, in national parks and public bathrooms. They have what seems to be an enormous amount of fun.

The end

In 2013, Ibushi signed an unprecedented double contract with NJPW and DDT – a testament to how much both companies wanted him that he could negotiate such a thing. Unfortunately, he spends a lot of time out with injuries – concussions, shoulder problems, compressed vertebrae and so on.

In late 2014, Kenny Omega signs an exclusive contract with New Japan, as a junior heavyweight. Kota has just moved up to heavyweight, and, kind of suddenly, the Golden Lovers don’t really exist any more.

There was no formal split, no announcement that it’s over or dramatic break up match – though they did have a final match, in DDT.

This match, against brilliant rookie Konosuke Takeshita and serial groper Danshoku Dieno, is a classic example of DDT’s excellent absurdist clown nonsense. It’s falls count anywhere, so they end up in the audience, outside near the concession stand, riding trolleys, sliding down guard rails. Ibushi moonsaults off a scaffolding. Takeshita rolls down several flights of stairs. At one point, Deino grabs both the Golden Lovers by the dick. Dieno tries to force their faces together – one of his signature moves, by now – they resist, but then, quickly, voluntarily, kiss, which drives the audience wild.

Kenny spends half the match looking delighted, the other half like he’s about to burst into tears. Lots of people run in, honouring the various friendships and rivalries Kenny’s had in DDT, including with Yoshihiko, the sentient sex doll. It’s a distillation of what made the Golden Lovers and DDT so popular – stunning wrestling, comic stunts, genuine emotion, a lot of dick jokes.

Kenny and Kota execute a Golden Shower on Deino, get the pin – and now it’s Kenny who won’t get up, Kenny who sits staring at the ground. Kota bends over him, arms around his head, saying something.

Again, it feels like a moment not for the audience. It’s the end of an era. They made this ending beautiful, joyous – but it’s still an ending.

It’ll be their last public appearance as the Golden Lovers for years – though it’s not the end of their relationship.

The aftermath

In New Japan, not only are they in different weight divisions, but Omega joins Bullet Club: the gaijin heel faction.

Ibushi has essentially never changed his in-ring presentation or style, but Omega remakes himself as The Cleaner: an 80’s movie villain in mirrored shades who hates Japan (he is, in real life, fluent in Japanese and about to move there full time). Ibushi’s in the hometeam, tagging with the faces of the company. Omega is on the side of the cheaters. They’re in the same company but don’t share a ring and don’t interact at all for six months.

In 2015, Ibushi challenges AJ Styles, leader of the Bullet Club, for the IWGP Heavyweight belt. Styles always comes to the ring with Bullet Club members in tow, ready to interfere, so it’s not a surprise to see Kenny at ringside.

What’s surprising is how they handle it.

When Ibushi enters, he looks anxious. He normally comes into these matches looking cocky and energetic, selling confidence, but all he’s selling here is concern.

Similarly, Omega, seconding Styles, looks awful. He seems nervous, upset – scared. He stays like this the whole match.

The regular job of a second is to watch your fighter pound the mat, celebrate when he does good and hound the referee when he doesn’t. Kenny does none of this – he only looks at Kota the whole match. When AJ throws Kota out of the ring, Kenny takes a half-step towards him, then three steps back.

When Kota climbs the turnbuckle for a Phoenix Splash, his finisher, close to winning, Kenny does jump on the apron – the normal thing a Bullet Club member would do now is knock him off or grab his leg, but Kenny just stares at Ibushi, frozen. Kota spots him, gives a little head shake – disappointed? Discouraged? Kenny doesn’t do anything, but Kota is distracted, and within a minute, AJ pins him. When the rest of the Bullet Club is celebrating, Kenny still looks distressed, can’t raise his arms, can’t make eye contact with his team.

This whole set-up is both heartening and devastating. It’s possible that NJPW wanted a clean slate, to forget Ibushi and Omega’s history because it was queer, or maybe because it came from a different promotion. But the Golden Lovers organised this moment intentionally, to make it clear, a year after they’ve been in a ring together, that they’ve forgotten nothing. It was not a simple betrayal that could create a narrative of resentment, nor does Ibushi publicly blame Omega for his loss, as he could have done, as some expected him to. It’s an ambiguous reminder of their connection, one that could be read many ways. In the black and white world of pro-wrestling, it’s incredibly bold to have this kind of ambivalence in your narrative. Once more, neither of them would settle for what was expected of them – instead going above and beyond to tell this story.

However, going above and beyond in a profession like wrestling has serious consequences. Within a year, Ibushi resigned from New Japan, citing injuries and emotional burnout. Kota, after recovering from herniated cervical discs, travels around the world, wrestling in shows as varied as the UK’s all women Pro-Wrestling EVE and the WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic. He seems to be touring different styles of wrestling, developing his craft in different fields. This is, again, unprecedented – not taking time off for injury, but resigning from NJPW (like WWE, it is the professional zenith of Japanese wrestling), going other places, refusing to commit. He is moving away from what wrestling society expected him to do.

On the other hand, Omega buckles down. Almost as soon as Ibushi’s out of the company, he deposes AJ Styles as leader of the Bullet Club and graduates to heavyweight. Kenny climbs the ranks in New Japan, still as a sneering heel, winning the 2016 G1, taking belts and having epic rivalries. He becomes a main event, rebranding from the Cleaner to the Best Bout Machine – this was also unprecedented, that a foreigner from outside New Japan’s highly competitive dojo, where young trainees have to shave their heads and set up the ring for every show, could be one of the faces of the company.

During their separation, there are links that they made between themselves – comments in interviews or on twitter, little nods and winks to people in the know. There’s also the theoretical but weirdly compelling language of their costumes. Kota’s barely changing blue, white and gold shorts had often featured a stylised bird motif – after 2015, there was a single skeletal wing on his hip – potentially a reference to Kenny’s One Winged Angel finisher. In 2017 this evolved into a creature that seemed to be half phoenix, half bat. The phoenix had always been part of Ibushi’s iconography, but the imagery of two one-winged creatures brings up interesting parallels. Kenny’s many costumes, during this time, increasingly included white, gold, feathers, and by 2017, just direct references to Ibushi.

More obviously, Omega deploys some of Ibushi’s distinctive moves, both in the 2016 G1 and 2017 Wrestle Kingdom. He refuses to comment on either. Ibushi talks about Omega being one of the people he both does and does not want to face. Omega talks about being strong enough to face Ibushi. It became increasingly obvious that they are working to keep their story alive – which this is revolutionary in a media that requires both broad literacy in a history as complex and baffling as comic books and an ability to forget everything that’s ever happened.

Ibushi had officially returned to New Japan in the 2017 G1 – and many anticipated that he and Omega would meet in the finals.

Instead, Ibushi failed to advance from his block, and Omega was defeated in the finals by Naito, one of his rivals. Again, what’s most interesting is the aftermath – there’s a video from backstage, where Omega’s being supported out by his teammates the Young Bucks, and Ibushi’s just, suddenly, there.

This is the first time cameras have caught them together in years.

Omega staggers towards him, Ibushi gives him a towel. The Bucks keep the cameras back. Kota puts his hand on Kenny’s chest, over his heart. They say something to each other. Then, Kenny pushes himself away, throws the towel to the ground, limps down the hall – leaving Kota alone, staring after him.

Kenny is an emotional heel, presenting vulnerability at strange times. Kota is a flighty babyface, becoming terrifying during certain matches. They both refuse to conform to tradition, forging their own path. When they’re together, they’re something wrestling almost never sees: an authentic love story. They’re gathering thousands of fans – wrestling fans who are invested in the creative in ring product, in this new, different style of storytelling, in the queer romance.

Anyone hoping for a G1 finals match between them to resolve the tension got something totally different – this fraught moment that’s still not for us, while it blatantly is, this moment that feels very powerful though nothing happens. The ambiguity of Kenny’s apron jump returns – Kota could be gloating, but he’s not. Kenny could be furious, but that’s not it either. There’s something else here, something that wrestling doesn’t have the language for. Something that the Golden Lovers are still writing the language for.

The beginning, again

In early 2018, they are in the same ring – but not in the way anyone expected.

They’ve been accelerating towards something, we know, they must be – there must be a match, there must be a confrontation to bring this strange story to a boil. Maybe they’ll meet at Wrestle Kingdom in January, we say, desperate for some new development.

But they don’t. Ibushi faces Cody, also of the Bullet Club, and Omega fights Chris Jericho, a free agent. Both their matches are, as we’ve come to expect, hugely impressive and wonderfully dramatic – separate, but connected.

There’s a great deal of kayfabe soap opera backstory that had played out across several months, matches and youtube videos – it boils down to the claim that Kenny had instructed Bullet Club not to touch Kota, and Cody challenged him as an indirect challenge of Kenny.

Cody, a face in the US, is an excellent heel in Japan, arrogant and evil and camp, working with his wife Brandi to cheat, distract and disrupt matches. There’s a creepy sexual tone to his taunting of Ibushi – kissing Kota’s hand and cheek, telling him “He doesn’t love you like I love you.” Kota hates it. Everyone hates it.

Kota beats Cody handily at Wrestle Kingdom – and the next day, Cody comes at him after a tag match, knocks him around, gets someone to hold his arms, goes to attack him with a steel chair.

Kenny runs in. He snatches the chair away, yells at Cody, looks at, but doesn’t talk to Kota, who rolls out of the ring.

Kota stands, watching Kenny argue with his team in the ring, and turns to leave, alone – it’s hard to tell, but the footage suggests he’s crying.

Kenny’s trying to maintain his position as leader of Bullet Club, which is falling apart around him. He attempts to recruit a new member, Jay White, who immediately betrays and challenges him.

The match with Jay White happens at the end of the month – and Kenny loses. This is unexpected – Kenny Omega just beat veteran Chris Jericho, Jay White is fresh from excursion. What might have been more expected is that Bullet Club spill into the ring.

Cody, directly now, goes for Kenny. He stuns Kenny, tells someone to hold his arms, goes to attack him with a steel chair.

This time, Kota runs in. Bullet Club scatter. Unlike last time, when there were people everywhere, Kenny and Kota are alone in the ring.

Kota, hesitant, anxious, holds a hand out to Kenny, who’s on the mat. He’s not gloating – he’s never been gloating. He’s come to Kenny not at his strongest, but when he needs help. Kenny struggles away, refuses his hand, seeming ashamed. He hauls himself up the ropes.

Kota reaches out again, and Kenny shakes his head. Kota turns away, Kenny is near tears. Kota steels himself, faces Kenny again. One of the Japanese commentators asks “What is happening?” One of the English commentators says “Watch out, this might break down!”

The natural state of the pro-wrestling narrative is a kind of chaotic stasis – there are many dramatic fights, all presented at the be all, end all, but they ultimately resolve nothing, and another fight must occur.

The Golden Lovers reunion was a method of narrative resolution we don’t often find in the sport. It’s an exemplar of their utopian vision of wrestling, a way that it doesn’t have to hurt, that it can be beautiful and exciting and different.

They hug.

The audience, the commentary desks, the streamers: all explode.

The Golden Lovers hold on to each other in the ring like they are the only thing that matters.

The middle, again

Over the next few months, they bring back all the greatest hits of the Golden Lovers – along with some new double team moves. They are happier together then either of them have been in years – smiling and high fiving and hugging.

They say they want to be the best tag team in the world. There’s an interview where Kota says, “We share one heart.” In another, Kenny says, “It’s important that we’re telling stories that are true to our hearts.”

Whenever they share a space, there’s a sense of pleasure, of play, at work, – their work is playacting and they’re taking joy in it. Ibushi and Omega often incorporate, into the emotional scope of their matches, both the thrill of seeing someone execute a risky move and the weird comfort of seeing it done with utter confidence. This is exponentially increased by their visible connection – they look at each other when they pull off something crazy, both delighted that the other was there to see it.

When Omega fights Kazuchika Okada (who is IWGP Champion again) for the Heavyweight belt, he does it explicitly with the benefit of Ibushi’s training. Kenny has faced Okada three times before – all widely celebrated matches. This match opens with a clip, directed by Kenny, that represents Kota as a kind of guardian angel.

There’s something in here about success being the best revenge – anyone who doubted the importance of the narrative of the Golden Lovers is presented with Ibushi’s influence being the key to Omega’s success. Kota is in his corner, calling out his support. When Kenny finally beats Okada, in a match that lasts over an hour, it’s Kota putting the belt around his waist – they won’t let people forget what they’ve spent years establishing.

This vision of queer romance as something that helps you overcome obstacles is almost never represented in media, let alone wrestling. When Kota lifts Kenny onto his shoulder, along with the Young Bucks, Kenny ruffles his hair. These moments are for the audience, finally – this is a story they’ve wanted to tell for so long.

But – now that Kenny Omega is the Champion, Kota, who should have been, could have been Champion years ago, must face him. There has to be progression.

(In the meta-narrative of wrestling, we know that Kota can’t be Champion until he signs an exclusive contract with New Japan, which he still hadn’t done. Through 2016 to 2018, he was technically freelancing. It’s unprecedented that freelancer could have so many high profile matches along such a wide span of time – just like his dual contract, Ibushi is so in demand as a performer he can kind of set his terms.)

They meet again in Budokan in the G1. The Championship belt is not at stake, but if Kota wins, it’s his right to challenge for it.

When they stand, facing each other, before the bell, Kota presses a hand to his heart, takes a deep breath. Kenny is subdued. Throughout the match, there’s nods and echoes of their last – six years ago. Kota doesn’t climb a balcony, but he does twist out of Kenny’s finisher half a dozen times. There are no clean breaks in the match, they’re always pressed together, impossible to separate.

It’s painful to watch, but engrossing as well. It’s neither as fun as their first match or as frightening as their second, but there’s so much feeling to it – ranging from frustration to resignation to satisfaction to delight to fury. They know each other so well, and communicate so well. They’re hurting each other. They’re putting on a show. They’re both drained.

Kota wins, by the way. Again, Kota wins. Again, he seems incapable of lifting himself from Kenny. Perhaps this is what you do when you get a pinfall on your love – you hold them down, head to their chest, check that their heart is still beating.

Kota can’t stand. Kenny may have a broken rib. They put their heads together, in the ring. Kenny congratulates him.

Kota promises to win the final tomorrow. They get helped up, and walk out together, arms around each other.

They give their backstage comments slumped together on the floor, which never happens between two people who just faced each other. But, we should know by now, the Golden Lovers don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. They’ve made a new world of wrestling, a better one, and different rules apply.

The end, again

Wrestling is iterative – the same thing happens over and over, with minute but crucial variations that make it worth watching. As the Golden Lovers quietly split, years ago, into different weight divisions and factions and companies and continents, they’ve done it again.

Kota didn’t win the G1 final. The rematch Kenny owed him ended up a threeway with Cody, which Kenny won. Kenny lost the IWGP Championship in January. This was a gentle unravelling of their plot that left them open to many possible futures.

Ibushi, having finally signed a two year contract with NJPW in January, will be in the New Japan Cup and may be IWGP Heavyweight Champion by the end of the 2019.

Omega resigned from New Japan. He is, with the Bucks and Cody, an Executive Vice President of the brand new All Elite Wrestling, a billionaire-funded and wrestler-run company which is posed to compete with WWE.

While Kenny was leader of the Bullet Club, he converted their motto from “rule the world” to “change the world”. It’s become the motto of AEW. He has a non-exclusive contract, and may turn up in New Japan, or any other promotion that wants him.

Uncoupling the Golden Lovers gives them the freedom to avoid another match between them – matches between them are scary, and, in their utopian perspective, unnecessary. They know how to tell a story together without ever being in the same room.

Putting themselves in different promotions, able to pursue their own goals without competing, is another creative decision. It’s also a clever way to drive demand for the Golden Lovers brand, which might have suffered from saturation.

They did have a last match together, though we didn’t know it at the time. They tagged together at the last show of the year, against Hiroshi Tanahashi and Will Ospreay. It was a heartstopping match that showed everyone who might still be on the fence that tag team wrestling can absolutely be a main event, that it can be contender for match of the year.

They win. Of course they win. They’re the best tag team in the world.

After their victory, in a wildly indulgent promo, Kenny sings a Christmas carol as fake snow falls from the ceiling. He and Kota hold their hands and their belts aloft. Here is their utopia – not in their victory, but in their ability to take tag team wrestling, to take Christmas carols in fake snow, and to make them genuinely and sincerely captivating.

When questioned about their relationship this February, after the announcement that Kenny is leaving New Japan and Kota is staying, Kota, ever abstruse, reportedly said, “I’m not thinking about that right now.”

Kenny wished Kota a Happy Valentines Day on Twitter, wrote “I’m always thinking of you”.

There’s a power in longing. The Golden Lovers know how to use it.

How long can a culture survive without something new? Not just fresh blood but fresh ideas and approaches, new priorities and new stories to tell. This philosophy seems to be what unites the Golden Lovers, even when they are apart: they both clearly want to change the world of wrestling. They’re going to any lengths to show people a new way of wrestling, a new way of telling stories, a new way of connecting with others. They are both utopian thinkers, utopian actors, organising against the systems that have let them down, creating the future they want to live in.

I get asked, whenever I talk about the Golden Lovers (which is often): is it true? Are they actually a couple? I have to tell them: I don’t know. I think it is?

They may be the best actors in the world, as well as the best wrestlers. They may have had the foresight, ten years ago, to know that same sex relationships are becoming more accepted, that there’s more support for same sex marriage in Japan now than there’s ever been. But, ultimately, I don’t know. More importantly, I don’t need to know, to feel strongly about their story.

Let’s return to the origins of the Golden Lovers.

Imagine flying across the planet to creatively collaborate with someone you admire. It’s so successful, so fun, that you uproot your life to continue the collaboration.

Imagine meeting someone from another country who barely understands your language but seems to understand everything you want to say.

Imagine you intertwine your careers and lives to the point when no one can talk about one of you without mentioning the other.

Imagine that together, you challenge the expectations and boundaries of your artform, your industry, your world, that you make them new, more open and beautiful than ever before.

That’s true. These dreams can be realised. Whatever the future holds, the Golden Lovers have been true to their goals, and true to their hearts.

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