Highly touted NJPW (New Japan Pro Wrestling) star Kota Ibushi revealed in an interview that he has actually turned down a deal from AEW (All Elite Wrestling).
Ibushi recently announced that he would be staying in NJPW as he has signed a two-year deal with NJPW as well as entering the New Japan Cup.
Ibushi discussed that he turned down an offer to join the roster of AEW and signing with NJPW while speaking to ShuPro (translation via NJPW commentator Chris Charlton)
‘I want to wrestle exclusively for New Japan. If I can, I want to be on every card, every tour,” said Ibushi. “AEW said they just want me in their ring in some form. The ideal for them was for me to move to America and be there full time. I turned them down just after Wrestle Kingdom. If I went it would be the end of my career. There wouldn’t be anywhere else to go after that. No step up, nothing left to do. That would be the last step to make, and after that things would just go down. Great money, but I want to keep developing.”
Ibushi continued, “What I realized (talking to AEW) was I really don’t care about money.”
