NJPW News: Bad Luck Fale talks about the success of The Bullet Club, AJ Styles joining the group in 2014, and The Young Bucks
What's the story?
In a recent interview with New Japan Pro Wrestling, veteran Pro Wrestler Bad Luck Fale weighed in his thoughts on The Bullet Club and the group's long-term success, fellow stablemates The Young Bucks, and also opened up on AJ Styles joining the faction in 2014.
In case you didn't know...
Following his departure from TNA/Impact Wrestling, former Impact World Champion AJ Styles made his debut for top Japanese promotion New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2014. Following Styles’ debut for the promotion, ‘The Phenomenal One’ immediately associated himself with legendary faction The Bullet Club, where he eventually became the leader of the group, taking over from the departing Finn Balor (then Prince Devitt).
During Styles’ tenure with NJPW and The Bullet Club, he successfully managed to capture the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on two different occasions. However, following Wrestle Kingdom 10 in 2016, Styles was subsequently booted out of The Bullet Club by his fellow stablemates The Young Bucks, Cody Hall, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, and Kenny Omega, who took over leadership from Styles.
After becoming the leader of The BC, Omega went on to form a subgroup called The Elite, which consists of both Matt and Nick Jackson—The Young Bucks.
The heart of the matter
During his interview with NJPW, Bad Luck Fale discussed a host of topics and below are the highlights from his interview: (H/T: Wrestling Inc)
If he initially thought The Bullet Club would be this successful for such a long period of time:
As per Bad Luck Fale, he apparently did not think that The Bullet Club would successfully maintain their star-studded status for such a long period of time, as he and his fellow members were initially given the opportunity to start something revolutionary, embrace it, and eventually turn it into something more legendary.
"No, not at all. But we were given a chance to start something, and embraced it, went with it and here we are. I think really it's a credit to how smart we were in bringing in the right people at the right time, and changing with the times. Those guys (like nWo), it was a case of throwing everyone in together, it was super hot and explosive but it couldn't last long."
On AJ Styles joining the faction in 2014:
According to Fale, when Styles first came in and joined The Bullet Club, there was apparently a lot of animosities and several members of the faction were bitter about it as well, considering the fact that an outsider immediately came into the group and became the leader.
However, the best thing that ever happened when Styles came into the Bullet Club was when he first won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and called for a group huddle in the hotel and eventually addressed the elephant in the room by claiming that Styles' only goal was to move forward and make The Bullet Club better as an overall group.
"AJ was a few months after. There was a little bit of animosity at first, about him coming in and being the leader of what we had started, y'know. We were bitter but we accepted it. But the best thing that happened was when he came in, won the (IWGP) belt, and nobody knows this story, but we came back to the hotel and he got all of us in a huddle. And he said 'I know I've come in as an outsider, but I'm here to try and make things work with everyone.' He just addressed the elephant in the room."
From that night onwards, it was subsequently decided that The Bullet Club had no leader and everyone in the faction were on the same level, however, it the OGs of the group, things slowly started to fall apart when Kenny Omega took over the leadership and The Bullet Club Elite gave a completely new narrative to the group.
"From that night forward … Look, nobody decided there was a leader. That's why the Bullet Club worked, because nobody pegged themselves as 'I'm the leader, I'm the leader'. Because when you become like that, it becomes about the one guy and not the group. So to AJ's credit he never called himself the leader. That way we were all on the same level. So if someone had a push, everybody supported them. Everybody would be there to say 'this guy's the best wrestler in the world', and we could all rely on the same support. That's why is to us as the OGs, it all fell apart when Kenny (Omega) took the helm. (The Elite) took it somewhere else and it felt like we weren't part of the narrative anymore. It was so different to what we had started. So that's why during the G1 we started taking things back to where they were."
On The Young Bucks:
Fale stated both Matt and Nick Jackson have always been good both in and outside of the ring and 'The Underboss' has been a fan of The Bucks because they always tend to rise up to the challenge they're facing.
Apparently, when The Bucks first came into NJPW, they helped in developing the Jr. Heavyweight Division, which had no hype behind it and their success on the American Independent Circuit also helped them get bigger in Japan, alongside the assistance of the rest of The Bullet Club.
"The Bucks were always good. Always good. I've always liked them because they rise up to the challenge that they're faced with. When they first came in, the junior tag division really had no hype behind it, but them coming in helped us; they had a niche following on the American indie scene and from there, we helped them get bigger in Japan, and they helped us get bigger in America. For them to go from that level in 2013 to where they are now, that's just amazing."
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