10 Things You Didn’t Know About Bullet Club

Given the way Bullet Club have seeped into mainstream wrestling culture as a whole, it’s easy to forget their original mission. Their brand has become so strong that even the average WWE fan at least knows the name, and while that’s far from a bad thing, Bullet Club’s initial purpose has inevitably become lost in the shuffle.

Japanese wrestling is built on honour, tradition, and respect. Matches are rarely settled by anything other than a clean pinfall or submission, and until Bullet Club came along, screwy finishes were almost unheard of. Most matches were clean, spirited affairs where the victor triumphed primarily on skill, smarts, and the strength of their performance.

Interferences, ambushes, and referee bumps have become commonplace in America, but they’re a relatively alien concept in Japan. With Bullet Club initially comprised entirely of gaijin (non-Japanese wrestlers), their excessive use of these tropes represented a clear disregard for Japanese wrestling traditions. As a result, they were almost immediately over as NJPW’s top heel act, and their flagrant disregard for puroresu customs set them aside from everyone else in the company.

This might not seem like such a big deal in America, but it was huge for New Japan at the time. Bullet Club’s nefarious antics were a giant step in puroresu’s Americanisation, and immensely effective in drawing heat from straight-laced Japanese crowds.