Kota Ibushi breaks down how his body felt when he had Mallory-Weiss Syndrome.
Earlier this year, Ibushi pulled out of the NJPW New Beginning USA tour after it was initially announced that he suffered from Type-A Influenza. It was then later revealed that he actually suffered from Mallory-Weiss Syndrome. In an interview with NJPW, Ibushi spoke about how he felt when he first started noticing the symptoms.
"I just felt absolutely terrible one day, and threw up two or three times. What can happen is that there?s this thin connective tissue between your stomach and your esophagus, and that can tear and get damaged. That?s Mallory-Weiss," Ibushi said.
Ibushi then went into great detail as to how his body suffered with Mallory-Weiss Syndrome and his thought process before it was decided that Ibushi would not compete on the tour earlier this year, which had stops in Florida, North Carolina and Atlanta. Ibushi believed it was the right decision to not go on the tour because there was no turning back if he didn't get better or felt worse during the flight.
"Oh, it sucked. The flu alone sucked. I had this awful cough, and I felt a bunch of mucus in my throat. I thought I could clear it and couldn?t. Then I coughed really hard, about five or six times and all of a sudden there?s all this clotted blood on my hands. I had a fever over 40 degrees at the time. I thought, ?man, that?s it, I?m gonna die?? And my lower back was in so much pain. Enough where I was thinking ?I don?t care if I die, as long as my back stops hurting?. Bear in mind, this was at 4AM on the day I was set to fly out to America. Even if I?d dragged myself onto that plane, I?d be nothing but a hindrance to everybody. I wouldn?t be able to do anything, and if I felt terrible on the flight, I couldn?t just ask to be dropped off. It took two or three days for the fever to come down, but the symptoms stayed with me for a whole week. To be completely honest, I?m still a little sore in the stomach area, so I haven?t been drinking at all; I?m not a big drinker anyway," Ibushi said.
Ibushi was able to eventually recover and still pair up with Hiroshi Tanahashi to defeat Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa to win the IWGP Tag Team titles at New Japan Road back in February.