Wrestling is queer and it's here (in Japan)

[Ragne]

The Golden Lovers (GL) is a tag team of wrestlers in the Japanese most popular wrestling company NJPW, and, as the name says, they are lovers (in the canon of the storytelling, because, yes, wrestling is a story narrated very violently).



With this post I just wish to spread the GL story a little bit so I will be very very brief!!

The history of the golden lovers can be divided in three parts:
1) 2008 - 2014: Meeting and becoming the Golden Lovers team
2) 2014 - 2018: The separation with a lot of tweeting and heartbreak
3) 2018: The runion
4) 2018 - ongoing: The post reunion and again happy in love Golden Lovers

(short explanation of their history + GIF and pictures under spoilers)



The Golden Lovers are Kenny Omega, dramatic Canadian, and Kota Ibushi, very rich beautiful ageless prince.
Here's a Kota and Kenny:

Spoiler:  

1) 2008 - 2014: Kenny Omega sees Ibushi on a video and decides to travel across the world to meet him and they become the Golden Lovers until Kenny feels left behind

Spoiler:  

Kenny Omega sees a match of Ibushi and, like a perfectly reasonable person, he decides to go to Japan and fight him in a match. It's an instant hit. Ibushi wins but they immediately decide that they don't want to fight against each others ever again... Kenny decides to stay in Japan and they form a team: the Golden Lovers.
During this period they are in a Japanese company called DDT and they do very cutesy things like kisses,


or going to dates,

or hugging dramatically or being unable to ever fight one against the other even in that one match where they were put on different teams.

But at the end, Ibushi started getting more and more successful, even without Kenny. They have a match one against the other, where Kenny tries to show that he is still on Ibushi's level... but Kenny loses. The match is brutal and it is the beginning of the break up.
Soon enough, Kenny decides that he has to leave Ibushi because Ibushi is the one who left him first. He leaves DDT, moves to the company NJPW and joins a team of villains called The Bullet Club.

Kenny, feeling angry because Ibushi left him behind, decides to become a heel (villain).

2) 2014 - 2018: Kota Ibushi leaves for a bit, Kenny Omega is very dramatic and never stops reminding us that Ibushi left him

Spoiler:  

Kenny, now a villain, starts his succesful career in NJPW, while Ibushi also wins a lot... until he fights Aj Styles, the leader of the Bullet Club (Kenny's team). During the fight, Kenny betrays Ibushi, leading to his first big loss which will be the start of Ibushi's temporary retirement from NJPW.
Here he is, Kenny about to stop Ibushi from winning, not able to act, but his sad eyes and angelic hair are enough to distract Ibushi.


Ibushi moves to WWE (the famous American wrestling company), Kenny accuses WWE of stealing his ex.
Kenny keeps winning and finds out that now, even with his team (and he becomes the new leader) he feels lonely because winning doesn't bring Ibushi back.


Finally, in 2017 Ibushi comes back and decides to participate in a big tournament (called G1). Of course, Kenny participates as well and he is more than glad to have the chance to fight Ibushi because he is still angry (at him? at himself?). He only has eyes for Ibushi.
At the end, they don't face each others in the ring, but behind the backstage, after Kenny loses the last match. Ibushi seems to want to comfort him, but Kenny refuses and walk away.

3) 2018: The reunion, where Kenny tries to pretend he doesn't feel anything for Ibushi, but he is a lying liar

Spoiler:  

Between the end of 2017 and January 2018, something weird starts to happen. Kenny's teammate Cody wants to become the new leader of Bullet Club and decides that the best way is to go after Kenny's ex: Kota Ibushi.


Kenny is furious and jumps in the ring to save Ibushi, but he doesn't want to admit why.
Later on, Cody decides to go directly after Kenny, but Ibushi jumps in to save him and a big tearful moment happen, after 4 years of separation.
The video says it all (it starts with Cody, the guy in the suit, fighting with Kenny Omega and the rest of the team and ends up in tears). Ibushi jumps in at 3:40:

4) 2018: Back together, Kenny and Ibushi decide to change the world of wrestling and only deliver cuteness and stories of love and friendship
(mostly cute pics under the spoiler)

Spoiler:  

After the reunion, Kenny and Ibushi manage to survive the Bullet Club team explosion (long story, but they do have some run against Cody and other Bullet Club members) and are stronger than ever.

At the last tournament, they even fought one against the other for the first time in four years and nothing bad happened.

With Ibushi by his side, Kenny also managed to win the heavyweight belt (a big accomplishment).


they had matches as a tag team again


and they published a cd

Some better links about the Golden Lovers:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

In this lovely amv (are they still called amv?) you can see scenes from these four different eras:
Up to the minute 1:20 it's them together as a team in DDT until their break up, from 1:20 to 1:50 it's Kenny's betrayal and their break up, from 1:50 to 2:32 their reunion, and then the lovely post reunion happyness

Spoiler:  

Long story short, Golden Lovers is a wrestling team that tries for the first time (as far as I know) to bring a queer storyline to wrestling!

[Rumpleteaser]

Thank you for this beautiful story. Are they really gay or are they putting it on for the cameras?

[Ragne]

Hi @[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] That's a good question!
Nothing is known of their personal life a part from the fact that Kenny is bisexual and Ibushi is very very rich.

Personally, I'm more interested in the storyline but in any case they chose the story themselves. As far as I know, they chose to reunite because they wanted to be able to interact and to hang out (wrestlers have to maintain "Kayfabe" which is the illusion that the plot is real, so during the break up I don't think they could carelessly spend time together). I think it would have been easier to make their story a classic rivalry but it looks like they really fought to have it this way.

Plus, Kenny now is the heavyweight champion and Ibushi is an indipendent wrestler, which means that ibushi is hardly going to win anything important (as njpw rewards people that have exclusive contracts with them), but Kenny is making it quite clear that he wants the public to not forget about Ibushi, which is pretty nice.

[Rumpleteaser]

@[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

I see. Do they hang out in public or do they only show up for one another's matches?

I knew there was a bit of a plot to wrestling and competition between opponents but I didn't realise it was so serious.

[Ragne]

@[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Wrestling is weird! Everything (every public appearance even if some exceptions can be found) is part of their characters. Kayfabe (the illusion that what is happening in wrestling is real) has to be maintained, which I suspect is the reason why Kenny and Ibushi decided to reunite.
They do hang out in "public" (Kenny is a gamer and participates to these games competitions and stuff and since their reunion, Ibushi follows him sometimes, also Ibushi never used to travel outside Japan before reuniting with Kenny. Other wrestlers say they usually travel together, from city to city or outside Japan).
Basically the amount of "appearances" that can compose the storyline is: matches, post matches comments, interviews, outings (other wrestlers sometimes [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] or [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]), twitters (sometimes they [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]) and similar.

One of the funniest things, for me, is watching interviews in their break up period. People often asked Kenny about Ibushi and, of course, he had to maintain the character of being jealous and angry at Ibushi, but sometimes he just laughs awkwardly or the people around him laugh ([Only registered and activated users can see links. ] where Kenny's teammates seem to find the question pretty funny). I wonder if Kenny and Ibushi kept seeing each others and hanging out (even if rarely).

In any case, whether they are really lovers outside the story or not, I think they truly did not want to stay separated. One of the cutest thing is how smiley Kenny Omega is in this post reunion months.

Kenny's teammates also have a youtube series called Being the Elite, which is usually comedic, and usually Ibushi is there when Kenny appears (and Ibushi is known to hate storytelling outside matches so it is a big deal for him, apparently). Here's [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].

About plots in general, there are more or less complex ones. This is clearly an exception. Usually passing from one promotion (DDT) to another (NJPW) the plots are sort of forgotten, but this 10 years storyline is still going only because of Ibushi and Kenny deciding for themselves. In general plots in Japanese wrestling (not in WWE) rotate around characters' interactions and team dynamics.
There are other amazing characters ([Only registered and activated users can see links. ]), and different teams as well!

Btw, I have a file with all the links to their story (from the njpw streaming website), but I can try to put together one that summarize with videos/tweets etc. their story (but only free links!)


I also I forgot to add the gifs and pics sources!! Here they are: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[Ragne]

Awww I just wanted to share the recent cover of this wrestling magazine

[Rumpleteaser]

@[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] Dang! You put a lot of effort into this! Thanks for the information! ^.^ This is totally cute.

[Ragne]

Haha, I admit I did a compilation of their moments when I got into wrestling, trying to understand their story.

And now even the official youtube channel of the company is posting cute videos about them:

[Ragne]

some love declaration from the last match

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[Ragne]

I just wanted to share how the GL pin their opponents: