Kota Ibushi has officially become a free agent as of February 1st as his contract with NJPW expired.
It wasn’t long after Kota Ibushi officially hit the free agent market before GCW would announce Kota Ibushi’s return to pro wrestling at The Collective during WrestleMania week. Ibushi has been announced to face Impact’s “Speedball” Mike Bailey at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport. He was also announced to compete at Joey Janela’s Spring Break.
Now that Ibushi is free to sign for any promotion, AEW Owner, Tony Khan was asked on Busted Open Radio if he had any interest in signing the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, stating:
“There are a lot of great free agents in the world of pro wrestling. Certainly, Kota Ibushi is a great talent. When you have a name like that, everyone in the world of pro wrestling would be very fortunate to have in their promotion. We’ve wanted to work with him in the past, so it’s certainly something we would have to consider,”
Ibushi quite recently stated he doesn’t believe he’ll go to AEW immediately but is willing to start having conversations with AEW once he opens a wrestling school in Japan.
Kota Ibushi has been out of action since October 2021 due to a shoulder injury having last wrestled Kazuchika Okada in a losing effort during the NJPW G1 Climax 2021 at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan.
H/T Fightful for the transcription
