Kenny Omega Looks Back At Start Of Friendship With Kota Ibushi In DDT Pro

Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi became friends in DDT Pro, and Omega recently looked back at the match that started their association. The Golden Lovers formed after a feud between the two in 2008 that followed their hardcore two-out-of-three falls match, and Omega spoke about the matter on Wrestling Observer Radio. You can see some highlights below (per Wrestling Inc):

On their initial match: “It was supposed to be a one and done. It was ‘Hey we’ve heard of this guy, we’ve seen him on the indies.’ At the time, it was Jersey All Pro Wrestling. ‘Apparently he is a fan of what we do, Ibushi is this hot young up-and-comer, they might be able to have a heck of a match together, and it would be a great chance for Ibushi to prove himself to the DDT faithful as a guy we can rely on, and a guy that can carry this company to the next stage.’ The match went better than we expected, and it ended up winning the Samurai TV match of the year, and that allowed for me to come back.”

On fighting for them as a team with management: “He said ‘I believe in this too. If we screw this up, if this is a complete -– if fans don’t get with it, if they said hey we’d rather have seen these guys mix it up in a singles instead,’ then Kenny’s gone anyway, and we’ll just go back to plan A.’ But we did the Golden Lovers thing, and it worked out.” 

From 2009 onwards, Omega and Ibushi would go on to become two of DDT’s greatest competitors, both as a team and singles wrestlers, and despite their careers drifting apart during the 2010s, with Ibushi becoming a heavyweight star while Omega was still a junior heavyweight, they are still best friends to this day. Both men had to deal with major health problems throughout 2024 as Omega was battling diverticulitis at the same time as Ibushi breaking both of his ankles in NOAH, but they not only motivated each other to get back to full fitness, they also tried to figure out how to work around the limitations their own bodies have put on them.

On remaining supportive of each other to this day: “People have this expectation, we always kept using that word, expectation…We said ‘is it that the fans have it, or is this the expectation we’re placing on ourselves to be a certain way? I think when we really changed our perspective as to what we could give to the wrestling world to be just a little bit different, but could make everyone happy all the same, we have other talents.”