Four years. Four years was all it took for him to finally arrive to All Elite Wrestling. Since the beginning of the company, we saw a narrative being told: He was meant to be there, but he was not. A sad but hopeful tale of both Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega achieving their dreams, but being apart from each other.
While Ibushi became the Golden Star himself, shining in the galaxy known as New Japan Pro Wrestling, Omega went down a dark path because of these feelings of sadness that were already a big part of his character back when he was “The Cleaner”. A man that couldn’t feel love, and couldn’t give it to others, as we saw with his relationship with Hangman Page.
Yet, the narrative stood still: Ibushi was meant to be there, but he was not. As a glimpse of a relationship that once took over the wrestling world, the pieces of the Golden Lovers saga were split into AEW’s core, and Kenny felt them. Whether it was the Golden Trigger at Revolution 2020, or the infamous “What would Kota think?” sign from Full Gear 2021, the One-Winged Angel couldn’t bear the fact his Golden Lover was without him.
We saw Kenny going through dark thoughts, we saw Kenny saying things that resembled those feelings of hatred The Cleaner once used to built his aura. We never heard the name Kota Ibushi being even mentioned, but we all knew it was him.
Even after Kenny’s injury and the rise of Hangman as the AEW champion, the memories of past affairs were still there. After Page lost the AEW Championship, he remembered the mission of AEW in the first place, and, evoking the Golden Lovers mindset as a fuel, he lived to change the world of professional wrestling.
The Young Bucks joined Hangman too, but one man couldn’t do it. A man that once felt the warm and love of his Golden Star couldn’t bring himself to do it again. The lonely one-winged angel couldn’t love again. Whether it was the melancholy, the sadness or the memories is something I will never know. But what I do know is that those feelings of sadness were slowly turning into something else.
As the Blackpool Combat Club stood in front of The Elite as their literal counterparts, Omega was able to feel that passion again. It was not about protecting the company, it was about protecting his friends. It was about changing the world. That message was felt by Ibushi. Such an interesting fellow was pretty vocal about Kenny, and he promised him he was going to be by his side, waiting for the right time to appear.
When Kenny was betrayed by Don Callis and Konosuke Takeshita consecutively, the only thing that made him rise from the ashes like a phoenix was this feeling of love that he now shared with the whole gang. But even then, a piece of the puzzle was missing.
Many like to say Ibushi is more than just a Golden Lover, and while I support that and I dearly hope for Ibushi’s individual success, it’s just impossible to imagine an Ibushi or an Omega without their significant other. It’s not about wrestling at this point, it never was. This was always about real life. The real relationship that both men had that inspired thousands around the globe to accept themselves and live with that same mindset.
A story about friendship, a story about being the elite of professional wrestling, a story about chasing the true and only gold that matters. In 2021, every single man had a championship around their waist, but slowly, fate itself dictated that their true goal was not being champions. Ibushi, Omega, the Bucks and Page lost the gold that supposedly made them who they were, but in 2023, everything changed.
Whether it was the Blackpool Combat Club hunting down The Elite as a whole, or whatever went through their minds once they saw people forget what was the whole point of this story, it finally happened. After years of chasing that artificial glory, the gold The Elite needed appeared.
In form of a treasure, the Golden Star revealed himself to the world and changed it all. Because this story was always about that. The Golden Elite never wanted to win championships. The Golden Elite wanted to change the world of professional wrestling the only way they knew how. The Golden Elite was not about being the best wrestlers in the world. The Golden Elite was always about true love.
And it was about chasing the true gold, the true treasure of their lives: The Golden Star that shone through the darkness, and made them who they were. The Golden Star that was meant to be there was finally by their side, willing to change the world.