The Bullet Club, originally known as バレットクラブ (Barettokurabu) and stylized as BULLET CLUB, is a professional wrestling stable that primarily appears in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). The group has also made appearances in partner promotions like Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA, formerly Impact Wrestling) and All Elite Wrestling (AEW).
Bullet Club was conceived by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in early 2013, following a positive fan response to a storyline, where Prince Devitt turned on his longtime tag team partner Ryusuke Taguchi to form a villainous partnership with Bad Luck Fale.
Here’s a detailed look at its formation, key members, and its impact on the wrestling world.
Formation and Early Years
The group was officially formed in May 2013 when Irish wrestler Prince Devitt betrayed his Japanese partner Ryusuke Taguchi. He joined forces with American wrestler Karl Anderson and Tongan wrestlers Bad Luck Fale and Tama Tonga to create a villainous stable of foreigners, which they named Bullet Club.
Before the end of the year, the stable was also joined by three other Americans, The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) and Doc Gallows. Wrestlers from the Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotion have also worked tours of NJPW as members of Bullet Club, which led to the formation of an offshoot group named Bullet Club Latinoamerica in CMLL in October 2013.
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The four members of Bullet Club wrestled their first match together on May 22, when they defeated Captain New Japan, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Manabu Nakanishi and Ryusuke Taguchi in an eight-man tag team match.
At the end of 2013, Bullet Club held both the IWGP Junior Heavyweight and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships while also having conquered three of NJPW's five annual tournaments.
Bullet Club's matches often involve excessive outside interference, ref bumps and other tactics, which are more common in American professional wrestling and are rarely seen in Japanese puroresu, even in matches involving other villainous acts. This disregard for Japanese traditions and culture got the stable over as a top act.
Key Milestones and Title Reigns
In April 2014, Devitt left NJPW and was replaced in Bullet Club by American wrestler AJ Styles. The following month, Bullet Club received its first Japanese member when Yujiro Takahashi betrayed his former partners in Chaos to help Styles capture the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, meaning that the stable had now held all titles NJPW had to offer.
When NJPW added a seventh title (the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship) at the start of 2016 and an eighth title (the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship) in July 2017, Bullet Club quickly won them as well. To date, they are the first of three stables (the others being Chaos and Taguchi Japan) to have won every championship available in NJPW. They also held every male championship in Ring of Honor (ROH) (World, TV, World Tag Team and Six-Man) active at the time of the NJPW-ROH partnership.
Bullet Club has garnered a substantial amount of worldwide popularity, especially among American professional wrestling fans. As of March 2016, the stable's original Bone Soldier shirt was the top selling shirt on the Pro Wrestling Tees store, outselling all top independent wrestlers and WWE veterans that are affiliated with the site. In 2017, Bullet Club shirts were made available at Hot Topic stores, where they also became big sellers, supposedly selling 100,000 copies in the first three months.
Here is a summary of Bullet Club's major achievements:
| Championship | Titles Held |
|---|---|
| IWGP Heavyweight Championship | Yes |
| IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship | Yes |
| IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship | Yes |
| NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship | Yes |
| IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship | Yes |
Leadership Changes and Internal Dynamics
The stable continued adding members, most notably Canadian wrestler Kenny Omega, who became the group's third leader in early 2016 when Styles, Anderson and Gallows all left NJPW. Due to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions in 2020, a portion of the group (including current leader Jay White) could not travel to Japan, with new member Evil becoming a temporary top representative member of the group in the Japan-based contingent of the group after turning on long time LIJ stablemate, leader and then Double IWGP Champion (Heavyweight and Intercontinental) Tetsuya Naito after his new japan cup finals win, and went on to win both titles at Dominion, becoming the first non-Bullet Club leader to accomplish this feat.
Even after travel restrictions began easing as time went on, the two branch structures would remain in place as they would expand into Impact Wrestling in 2021 with Chris Bey becoming the first wrestler to join from the Impact roster. Later that same year, Evil formed the House of Torture sub group as its leader, composed of manager Dick Togo, Yujiro Takahashi and Sho.
In March 2023, David Finlay became the fifth leader of the group following Jay White's exit from NJPW.
Bullet Club Gold in AEW
A month later on April 5, 2023, Jay White would make his official debut for AEW, establishing with Juice Robinson a new sub group of the group called Bullet Club Gold.
At New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) event Battle In The Valley on February 18, 2023, then leader of Bullet Club, Jay White, was defeated by Eddie Kingston in a Loser Leaves NJPW match. On the April 5 episode of AEW Dynamite, White appeared and assisted Bullet Club member Juice Robinson in attacking Ricky Starks. The following week, White and Robinson revealed that they were the founding members of Bullet Club Gold.
On the June 7 episode of Dynamite, White defeated Starks with the assistance of The Gunns (Austin and Colten Gunn). Two weeks later, White and Robinson returned the favour by helping The Gunns defeat The Hardys (Jeff and Matt Hardy). On the July 8 episode of Collision, White and Robinson scored a victory over AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR, earning themselves a future title match.
Chicago Street Fight for the AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) vs. Bang Bang Gang (Juice Robinson and Austin Gunn) in a Chicago Street Fight took place at the AEW Worlds End pay-per-view event from Chicago, Illinois. They started brawling to start this one. Austin with a trash can shot.
History of BULLET CLUB Part 3: The Golden Elite
Homage to nWo and Cultural Impact
The group has been compared to the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) stable New World Order (nWo). As a way of paying homage to the nWo, members of Bullet Club began using the stable's signature "Too Sweet" hand gesture. The gesture, originally conceived by The Kliq's Sean Waltman and referred to by Kevin Nash as the "Turkish wolf", had supposedly been used by Anderson and Devitt behind the scenes since 2006.
In March 2015, WWE filed a trademark application for the hand gesture. Some, including Matt and Nick Jackson, suggested this was done due to Bullet Club's popularity. The application was ultimately abandoned by WWE. In August 2015, after Devitt had joined WWE as Finn Bálor, WWE released Bálor Club merchandise playing off Bullet Club. WWE recognized Bullet Club in the first week of January 2016, when discussing rumors about members of the stable joining the promotion, preceding A.J.