Bullet Club Is Finished (But The Elite Is Fine)
By Ross W Berman IV
Bullet club is fine https://t.co/joGX0hpySY
— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) January 28, 2018
When Cody hit Kenny Omega with Cross Rhodes at New Beginning In Sapporo, Bullet Club finally ended. While Cody has maintains that “Bullet Club is fine,” that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Between The Elite, Guerrillas of Destiny, & Bullet Club, the group had been fracturing like no other faction in New Japan. They are the victims of their own success, and Cody finally pulled the plug on the comatose faction.
Bullet Club was never The Yankees of New Japan like CHAOS. Bullet Club was never the found-family unit that Los Ingobernables de Japon has been. Bullet Club hasn’t even had a dominant, tyrant of a leader to keep them in line like Suzuki-gun. Their dynamic has always been that of a gang or a sleeper cell, but units like that require trust, something that Bullet Club has been severely lacking lately.
Money, respect, love have chipped away at the foundation of this once-lauded faction. Cody & The Young Bucks are making beaucoup money through licensing deals. Alongside his brother Tanga Loa, Tama Tonga has reached a level of respect that’s always felt due, as part of Guerrillas of Destiny. Kenny Omega’s love for Kota Ibushi has been rekindled. Outside a wordless cameo in Being The Elite, The Cleaner hasn’t been seen since he and Ibushi pulled an Officer & A Gentleman in Sapporo, avoiding all press and high-tailing it out of the building. Yujiro Takahashi, Bad Luck Fale, HIKULEO & Chase Owens are currently the most used members of Bullet Club, but none of them are popular enough to rekindle the fans’ love of BC.
While still immensely popular in America, in New Japan’s home country, Bullet Club is nowhere near as ubiquitous as it used to be. There was a time when Korakuen Hall was a sea of black Bullet Club t-shirts. The shirts in Korakuen are still black, but they now read Los Ingobernables de Japon.
LIJ has been selling merchandise like crazy. T-shirts, hats, banners, even teddy bears. Japanese fans cannot get enough of that Island of Misfit Toys. LIJ is even funnier than Bullet Club. Their humor is derived from effortless physicality and slapstick, and can be appreciated regardless of what language one speaks. This is far more accessible than Bullet Club’s endless torrent of Inside Baseball jokes, some of which requite 10+ years of wrestling fandom and dirt sheet subscriptions to understand. Much like Family Guy, Bullet Club is talented enough to keep their current fans very happy, well into the future, but also like Family Guy, they’re days as an irreverent, popular entity are long behind them.
CHAOS holds 5 titles, and LIJ and Suzuki-gun hold 1 title a-piece. Bullet Club is currently in possession of the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag belts, but that hot potato can’t stay with them for long. Kenny Omega and Cody are set to do battle in New Orleans at Supercard of Honor. The fact that Ring of Honor is presenting the battle between the two alphas of Bullet Club, and not New Japan, is telling.
While WWE is a sitcom that seems to revel in comfort and familiarity, New Japan Pro Wrestling is a prestige drama and the current mise-en-scène suggests a big fall for Bullet Club. In 2017 this match could be the main event of any secondary show. The comfort that Bullet Club has experienced is over, and now the real test will be ahead for them. The Elite have a popular web series. The Guerrillas of Destiny are a perennial dark horse in the tag division. The members of Bullet Club are fine, but Bullet Club is not. It is not crazy to believe that Bullet Club can recover, but in what form?
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