Kota Ibushi to make Japan in-ring return for GLEAT

Former NJPW star Kota Ibushi is set to wrestle his first match in Japan in nearly two years.

At GLEAT’s second-year anniversary show on Saturday, a video aired announcing that Ibushi will be coming to the promotion at their Ver. Mega show on Friday, August 4. The show is being held at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. It will be Ibushi’s GLEAT debut.

GLEAT hasn’t announced Ibushi’s opponent for the match.

Ibushi’s last match in Japan prior to this was the 2021 G1 Climax finals, where Ibushi suffered a shoulder injury against Kazuchika Okada. The injury forced the match to end in a stoppage.

Ibushi departed NJPW when his contract with the company expired this January.

Ibushi returned to the ring this March for the first time since his shoulder injury. He wrestled two matches at GCW’s The Collective, defeating “Speedball” Mike Bailey at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport and defeating Joey Janela at Joey Janela’s Spring Break.

During a February appearance on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan addressed the possibility of bringing Ibushi into AEW.

“There’s a lot of great free agents in the world of pro wrestling, but certainly Kota Ibushi is a great talent,” Khan said. “When you have a name like that, that is certainly somebody everybody in the world of pro wrestling would be very fortunate to have in their promotion. We really wanted to work with him in the past, so I think that is certainly something we’d have to consider.”