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HEADLINE: Oli Davis (@OliDavis) Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News
- I’m Oli Davis.
Balor Club Future On last Monday’s episode of Raw, almost
two years after all three men joined the promotion, Finn Balor finally teamed with his Bullet
Club Good Brothers Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.
But is the Bullet Club really 4 4 4 4 4 4 life, or just a one off piece of fan service
for the New Year’s Day episode of Raw, with the three men never set to team again?
We’ll find out on Raw tonight, but for now, all we have is Finn’s social media to give
us a clue.
FINN WATCH: Is The Balor Club fOreVER?
Hello and welcome to Finn Watch, I’m Oli Davis.
Is the Balor Club fOreVER?
Our fearless leader has provided us with an Instagram image that might reveal their WWE
future - an image of Finn wearing the Universal title and Gallows and Anderson with the tag
team belts in action figure form.
Meaning even if WWE don’t carry on with the Balor Club faction, we can still play
with our toys-I mean, arrange our action figures into fantasy booking scenarios.
Meanwhile, in Japan!
Bullet Club Vs. CHAOS ...the original Bullet Club has found itself
in crisis.
At last Friday’s New Year’s Dash show - New Japan’s equivalent of the Raw after
WrestleMania, coming a day after their biggest show of the year, WrestleKingdom 12 - top
Bullet Club members Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes had a tense confrontation when Omega stopped
Rhodes from seriously injuring Kota Ibushi.
Rhodes had lost to Ibushi at WrestleKingdom the previous day, while Omega has a long and
complicated relationship with the former Cruiserweight Classic wrestler.
In a botched attempt to heal the faction’s split, Omega introduced Switchblade Jay White
as the Bullet Club’s latest member, only to get turned on by him seconds later.
It turns out White had already accepted an offer to become part of IWGP Heavyweight Champion
Kazuchika Okada’s faction CHAOS, tweeting: You need Soldiers for a War.”
But as cool as storyline wrestling faction wars are, real-life wrestling promotion wars
are significantly more interesting.
New Japan Wants More WWE Stars New Japan’s WrestleKingdom 12 show last
Thursday was a huge success for the promotion, arguably enormously helped by the presence
of former WWE superstar Chris Jericho.
And Wrestling Observer Radio have revealed just how much business increased, noting that
New Japan’s streaming service gained 25,000 subscribers in the 2 days ahead of WrestleKindom.
This is a 36% increase on their previous number of 70,000 subscribers, and is considered to
be a “real big success”.
In comparison, last year’s WrestleKingdom show drew an extra 10,000 subscribers.
Live attendance was also significantly up, with the Tokyo Dome hosting almost 35,000
people paid.
New Japan owner Takaaki Kidani appears keen to replicate the Jericho model, as he told
Tokyo Sports: “As a result we will be able to pay [wrestlers] more (fight money).
I also want more talent from WWE to come to us like Jericho; I will do everything I can
to make it happen.
Right now WWE is not too adversarial with us so we feel we can make it happen.
As another thought, we feel it is important to build a foundation in the United States."
A working relationship between WWE and New Japan could certainly be beneficial to both
sides, but that last part of Kidani’s quote probably rules out McMahon staying friendly
for long.
New Japan intend on expanding into the United States, running their first live shows there
last Summer, and even introducing their own United States Heavyweight title.
If New Japan continue to build that “foundation” on WWE’s home turf, don’t expect them
to play nice for much longer.
Remember when Vince McMahon won the Royal Rumble?
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