The Bullet Club has been one of the greatest factions in professional wrestling over the past 5 years. While it has gone under a number of changes in leadership and membership, it had always remained the dominant faction in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Starting off with Prince Devitt, now WWE Universal Champion Finn Balor, as well as members The Young Bucks and current WWE Superstars Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, they wreaked havoc on the junior heavyweight and both tag team divisions. When Devitt left to join WWE, Kenny Omega came in to take his place in the junior heavyweight division and AJ Styles came over to the Orient after a decade-long run in TNA and immediately became the leader of the Bullet Club and IWGP Heavyweight Champion on his first night with the company.
Fast forward to the beginning of 2016. The 3 big stars of the Bullet Club, Styles, Gallows and Anderson all left for WWE, leaving Kenny Omega as the new leader of the Bullet Club. Omega paid dividends right away for the Club winning the IWGP Intercontinental Championship in a match with Hiroshi Tanahashi after Shinsuke Nakamure joined the 3 former members of the Bullet Club in leaving for WWE. The Young Bucks continued to dominate the junior heavyweight tag team division in New Japan and put on 5-star matches in Ring Of Honor in the United States. Tonga Roa, the former Camacho in WWE and Micah in TNA, joined his brother Tama Tonga and won the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Titles in their 1st match together. The Bullet Club’s influence even jumped across the Pacific to the U.S. and Ring Of Honor as Adam Cole became the leader of the U.S. version in a shocking display at ROH’s Global Wars in May. The Bullet Club looked to be stronger than ever.
But starting in June, it all went downhill. Tonga Roa and Tama Tonga lost their IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team titles to the Briscoes, Kenny Omega lost his IWGP Intercontinental title to Michael Elgin in New Japan’s first-ever ladder match, Adam Cole and the Young Bucks attacked Kyle O’Reilly so often and so viciously in ROH that matchmaker Nigel McGuinness said that Adam Cole could never compete for the ROH World title as long as he is match-maker. Even “The Tokyo Pimp” Yujiro Takahashi was losing business and girls (storyline only people).
As the calendar turned to August, however, the Bullet Club fought back. Kenny Omega won the month long NJPW G-1 Climax tournament to earn a future shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The Young Bucks regained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight titles. And to top off their comeback to prominence, at Ring Of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor this past Friday, Hangman Page defeated Jay Briscoe in a career-defining moment for him and Adam Cole was able to insert himself into the ROH World title picture and defeat Jay Lethal for the title. Lethal had been ROH World Champion for more than 400 days.
A lot of us in the wrestling industry had written off the Bullet Club for dead after their bad 8 week stretch and we were all wrong. The group has come back on both sides of the globe and appear to be stronger than ever. The demise of the Bullet Club has been greatly exaggerated.
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