NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 15 Night 2 | Kota Ibushi vs Jay WhiteJanuary 5, 2021Kota came into this match f

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 15 Night 2 | Kota Ibushi vs Jay WhiteJanuary 5, 2021Kota came into this match freshly crownedthe IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinentalchampion. Losing here would mean losing the titles after holding them for just a single day. Before this match, Jay promised him: “Every time that you are about to reach the heights that you so desperately aim for, I will always be there to pull you back down.”Part of the way into the match, I realized that it was telling the story of Kota’s entire NJPW career. It started to feel like, at least to me, that if Kota didn’t win here, he was never going to win the IWGP Heavyweight title ever again. This was the culmination of the many years he spent pursuing both of these championship belts.The match features reference after reference to some of Kota’s most notable opponents and inspirations. I collected the ones that stood out to me, but there are probably more that I didn’t catch! Each of these brief explanations could in itself be an entire essay.The first gif is Jay imitating Tetsuya Naito’s pose to taunt Kota. Just the night before, Kota fought Naito to win these titles, and if he had failed to win, then Naito would be in this match opposite Jay instead. Kota and Naito have a lot of history together. Naito has often said that he hates Kota as a person, but loves him as a wrestler. He gave Kota a title shot on January 4 because he simply wanted to face Kota more than he wanted to face Jay.The second gif is Kota hitting the Bastard Driver, which is a move that he originally debuted against Naito in the semi-finals of the New Japan Cup on March 15, 2015. Kota went on to win the tournament that year, and Naito says that in that match, he felt that a clear line had been drawn between himself and Kota, with Kota above and him below, though this would change in the years to follow. Kota brought this move out against Naito again in the match that finally won him the titles.The third gif is Kota referencing Shinsuke Nakamura before using the Bomaye, which is Nakamura’s finisher. The first time Kota ever challenged for the Intercontinental title, he faced Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom on January 4, 2015. Kota lost that match, but it left a deep impression on him. He considers Nakamura to be one of his “gods,” and he frequently draws upon the Bomaye in his matches.The fourth gif is referencing an infamous moment from Kota’s match against AJ Styles on April 5, 2015. This was Kota’s first time challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight title. Kota’s ex tag partner Kenny Omega seconded Styles in that match, but Kenny didn’t attempt to interfere until the very end, when Kota was up on the turnbuckle about to launch into a Phoenix Splash. Kenny got up onto the apron, but couldn’t bring himself to actually attack his former lover. But the distraction was still enough to cost Kota the match, and he lost immediately afterward when Styles countered his Phoenix Splash into the Styles Clash, launching a new angsty chapter of the Golden Lovers story in the process. In this match against Jay, Kota once again faces interference from Bullet Club at a similar moment. As the English commentary points out, hesitation here had cost him before.The fifth gif is Jay referencing Hiroshi Tanahashi by attacking Kota with a few of Tana’s trademark Dragon Screw Leg Whips, then transitioning right into the same hold that he used to make Tana tap out. Kota’s history with Tana is complicated. Tana is another one of Kota’s “gods,” and Kota specifically created his finisher, the Kamigoye, to “surpass god,” referring to Tana. Kota was ultimately unable to beat Tana when it mattered most, in the 2018 G1 finals. But their relationship evolved from there, and Kota spent the first half of 2020 tagging with Tana and pursuing the tag titles. They lost the belts on their first defense, and Kota started to doubt his faith in Tana. In the end, Kota and Tana parted ways as tag partners because Kota wanted to focus on his singles career. Kota still respects Tana a great deal, but he has also grown past him in some ways. Kota’s goal of “becoming god,” which he claims to have achieved in this match with Jay, initially started when Tana told him, “From this point on, you have to become a god!”after Kota decided to stay with Tana on August 7, having overcome his doubt in the man he’d called “god.”The sixth gif is Kota successfully hitting the Phoenix Splash at last, after Jay kicks out of the first Kamigoye. The Phoenix Splash is Kota’s old finisher, and he had largely abandoned it in his recent matches, but going into Wrestle Kingdom, he decided he wanted to bring back more of his junior heavyweight style. In the match with Naito, he went back to his younger self in order to regain the freedom he had once had. The year before, Kota tried to use the Phoenix Splash against Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 14, but he ultimately could not hit the move and lost his match. Even though he beat Naito this time, he was still unable to hit the Phoenix Splash. But here, it finally connected.The seventh gif is Kota hitting one of Kenny’s signature moves, the V-Trigger. Kota started using a V-Trigger in the finishing sequence of almost all of his big matches, usually going for the move right before he hits the Kamigoye. In this match, drawing on his love for Kenny, he hits three V-Triggers right at the very end. The match itself beats the record previously held by Okada and Kenny (“a man Ibushi knows quite well,” as the English commentary describes him) for the longest Wrestle Kingdom main event.And finally, the eighth gif is Kota finishing the match with the Kamigoye. Right before this final move, he brought out a horrific backwards version, where he lifted Jay’s arms and struck from behind to the back of the head instead of from the front. But the regular Kamigoye is the move he wins with, surpassing Jay and finally overcoming all of these ghosts from his past. -- source link
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