Finn Balor details how he came up with ‘Bullet Club’ name
A new episode of Cody Rhodes’ “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” podcast premiered today with Finn Balor joining him as the guest.
On the show, Balor detailed how he came up with the name for NJPW’s Bullet Club faction in 2013. The group originally consisted of Balor (Prince Devitt), Karl Anderson, Tama Tonga, and Bad Luck Fale. Balor was looking for a common theme among the members, and he thought Bullet Club would be fitting. Anderson was already nicknamed “Machine Gun.” Fale had been using a move called the grenade as his finisher. And NJPW official Tiger Hattori had a long-running bit where he was calling Balor a “real shooter” after Balor caught Minoru Suzuki with an armbar during practice.
“You want to know a story? Which I don’t think I’ve told actually. Like, about the Bullet Club and where the name came from,” Balor said. “I was a young boy in New Japan. Before the shows, we would all warm up in the ring and the young boys would be made to do squats and push-ups and stuff. And then we’d get in the ring with the senior wrestlers and we’d be stretched, which would be like shot on basically and beat up.
“Minoru Suzuki was in the ring with me, he was a legitimate grappler. And I caught him with an armbar. He goes, ‘Ah, Devitt, you’re a real shooter.’ And then Tiger Hattori kind of heard that and every day he’d say, ‘Hey, Devitt, you’re the real shooter. You’re the real shooter.’ So this was going on in the locker room for about a year. He’d say, ‘Hey, Devitt, you’re a shooter.’ And he’d just do it like that ‘shooter.’ When the time came about a year later, the office came to me and said, ‘Hey, we want to turn you heel. We want to put you with Fale. We need to get you guys a group.’ So then they decided to put in Karl Anderson and Tama. I was trying to think what ties us all together. And at the time, Fale was using the hand grenade finish — similar to Solo [Sikoa]. And then there’s the Machine Gun. And I was the ‘real shooter.’ So I was like, ‘What links us all together?’ And it was Bullet Club.”
Rhodes — who would later become a member of the faction — credited Balor for changing the entire industry by coming up with this name. Bullet Club helped some of wrestling’s top stars like Balor, Rhodes, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and AJ Styles reach the levels they’re at today. Balor, Rhodes, and Styles are in WWE now, while The Young Bucks and Omega are in AEW.
In NJPW, Bullet Club is in flux and could potentially be ending. The remaining members of the Bullet Club War Dogs faction have been added into a new group called Unbound Company.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.