Finn Balor looks back on the origin of Bullet Club.
Balor, then known as Prince Devitt, founded Bullet Club with Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga in 2013, and the stable went on to reach impressive heights. It has remained a top action ver the years, and in honor of its tenth anniversary, Balor detailed the process of putting the group together in a new interview.
Speaking with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Balor reflected on the early days of the group, and he noted that NJPW asked him to come up with a name for the budding stable.
“Originally, it was just going to be me and Fale,” Balor said. “But the office saw how close I was with Chad [Karl] and Tama, and how we would spend every minute of the day together. So they asked me to come up with a name and extend our backstage relationship to the ring.
“I was trying to pick a name that tied us all together. Karl was ‘The Machine Gun,’ Fale had been calling his finisher the Hand Grenade, and Minoru Suzuki had been calling me a ‘real shooter’ for some months as we would roll submission wrestling in the ring before the shows.”
In the article, Barrasso noted that Balor narrowed the options for the name down to a list, which is still in his iPhone notes to this day. The candidates were “Bullet Club/Parade, Reload Club, Lock ‘n’ Load Club/Parade, and Getaway Club.” In the end, Balor decided on Bulet Club.
“To me, Bullet Club sounded the coolest,” Balor said. “However, I had mild concerns as the Japanese would sometimes mispronounce ‘bullet’ as ‘beret.’ But I chose to go with my gut, and the rest is history.”
The rest is history; since its inception, Bullet Club has featured a number of top stars over the years, including Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, AJ Styles, Adam Cole, and the Young Bucks. It is currently led by David Finlay, who won the NEVER Openweight Championship at NJPW Wrestling Fontaku.
