10 Things You Didn't Know About Kota Ibushi
6. He Successfully Made The Jump To New Japan's Heavyweight Division
In Japanese wrestling, weight classes are taken pretty seriously. When a wrestler is pegged as a junior heavyweight, odds are he won't be competing for heavyweight titles or in heavyweight tournaments. In the history of New Japan, only a single man has held both the Junior Heavyweight and Heavyweight Titles (Nobuhiko Takada), and in between those reigns, he left the company for years and became a huge star in Japan.
Ibushi may very well have been on his way to becoming the second man to hold that distinction. Despite not winning the Intercontinental Title from Nakamura, he devoted himself full time to heavyweight competition (he put on a few pounds prior to competing in the 2013 G1 Climax tournament), and was doing quite well - he won the single elimination tournament for the New Japan Cup in 2015, and that earned him the right to challenge AJ Styles for the IWGP Heavyweight Title. He took Styles to the limit, only losing after a distraction from Kenny Omega.
Sadly for New Japan fans, Ibushi suffered an injury in November of 2015, then announced he was leaving the company in February of 2016. Many expected that he'd get a true main event run when he returned to action, but it's possible the same can happen in WWE.