Kota Ibushi has taken to Twitter to express his frustrations with NJPW management, in particular Kikuchi, the head of talent relations for the company.
Ibushi has had disagreements with Kikuchi in the past. Word has it that Ibushi even threatened to expose Kikuchi’s personal life and that in return Kikuchi threatened to fire him.
One of Ibushi’s main complaints is that he believes management is rushing injured talent back into action. According to Ibushi, NJPW management wanted him compete at Wrestle Kingdom 16 after he was injured in the final match of the G1 Climax tournament against Kazuchika Okada. It has been reported that Ibushi was scheduled to win the tournament until he was hurt in the match.
Ibushi wrote in Japanese: “I’ll expose all about the former cheaters-gun (already returned) and the sexually harassing bosses, from the company president’s lies to his unreasonable power harassments this time. Get prepared for this Tokyo Sports and TV Asahi too. I don’t care.”
“Cheaters-gun” is apparently Kikuchi, Taka Michinoku and Taichi,
Ibushi then posted a text conversation with Kikuchi.
Kikuchi: Maybe we should end your contract with NJPW.
Ibushi: If I’m told so from the NJPW side, I can’t complain. I’ll get things settled. It’s fine if you just fire me.
Kikuchi: I don’t want to do that. What happened to you?
Ibushi: There’s no reason whatsoever. I have no excuse either and don’t know why but I can’t align with the company’s rules. If this atmosphere is too weird, then it can be quick, so you can cut me with no remorse.
To clarify their translation @golden_kuma wrote: “It’s very difficult to put his extremely vague, sometimes logically incoherent wordings that always lack context into another language. Like you need to identify what are the subject/object in an English sentence but typically there are no such things in Ibushi’s writings.”
Chiming in on the situation Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer said: “There is more than smoke to the fire. Ibushi has problems with upper management that are significant. Gedo…is trying to smooth them out, but it’s not settled.”