NNew Japan Pro Wrestling

Lamenting End of Bullet Club v5

  • February 12, 2026

Well it looks like Finlay is leaving NJPW and it's just another sad reminder at what could have been.

I loved the 5th generation of BC early on. It was more vicious, ruthless, and focused just on NJPW. The War Dogs subgroup was a great addition. You had a great heavyweight tag team with Gabe and Coughlin, jr tag team, and Finlay was growing into his role. The first blow to me was the loss of Coughlin, soft merging with LIJ, and then the final nail in the coffin at New Year Dash this year.

I look back at previous iterations of BC and this last gen did not live up to its potential. Wanted to have a NJPW BC vs AEW BCG feud peaking at forbidden door. Wanted to see Finlay have at least a short run as World Champion. Wanted to see an angle with Kidd trying to overthrow Finlay as Finlay had alluded to that happening with previous BC leaders.

Just heartbreaking to me. Had a solid first year, then the dominoes started to fall and led to a really anticlimactic end.

by RecoverOld9545

13 comments

  5. The existence of AEW has really hampered the “evil gaijin that eventually wins the respect of the crowd & opponents” angle.

    There are more options and more money for native english speakers that don’t totally fit the WWE mold. And even WWE have to be more aggressive with grabbing talent for NXT and above.

    As soon as Finlay started gathering steam you knew the offers would come in. Same with Gabe and the others. It’s a shame, but what can you do when NJPW simply can’t compete economically for talent

  6. I still can’t believe they ended probably the best faction of the 21st Century in a backstage segment. Like no big in ring angle, no loser must disband match against the UE or TMDK, just Finlay deciding he was cool with being Tsuji’s second in command. The group was so over at one point that the world’s second biggest wrestling company was formed around some of it’s core members and that’s how they decide to retire them?

  7. I feel like somebody is going to bring it back in the future.

    I don’t think there’s a place for the Bullet Club in this era of NJPW, but once things really get rocking, it’s going to come back in some form or fashion.

  10. War Dogs had some sauce that really made them stand out from previous iterations which was how much Finlay felt like the team’s weak link for so long despite being the leader. The constant pushing of the team as no longer accepting weakness and defeat and to be their own men while he himself was losing was building to an interesting angle where the stable he formed would eventually be the ones to consume him.

    Instead they pivoted to a more traditional setup and a lot of changes out the stop to that. Still it was super interesting early days. And like others said, it still ultimately made stars.

  12. The War Dogs have done a lot, if you consider that when this unit started it was a big question mark considering how young they were (still are) and that we were used to big stars representing Bullet Club. It was somehow an attempt to go back to the younger and hungrier more violent roots of BC and it was successful, we just have to consider the different landscape of WWE and AEW finally opening their eyes and offering big money to Japan’s gaijins before they’re broken down like Kenny or 45 like Tama Tonga.

    The biggest mistake here is NJPW’s dick ass booking, a booking that had Jay White’s era end against Hikuleo and Eddie Kingston while never addressing HOUSE OF TORTURE being in BC or not, something that was only addressed last year.

    In hindsight, something tells me that they knew about BCWG being dismembered, so they quickly ran the civil war to estabilish HoT out of Bullet Club, so that when the unit died HoT couldn’t claim BC membership anymore, so in a way it’s the perfect full circle: these guys are going out, but after a decade of being heels they made sure that HoT can’t usurp the BC name like they did for 4 years.

    The end might be a bit anticlimatic, but we’ve seen these guys lose to Tsuji (and Newman) on their way out, while Moloney formed a strong duo with Shingo and Ishimori finally embraced being a good guy like he was in NOAH.

    Not everytime you need a massive angle, let’s not forget that AJ Styles left after a sudden betrayal at the ends of Kenny, Jay White left agains Hikuleo and AEW’s Eddie Kingston, and The Elite as a whole just left Bullet Club during a podcast interview, ending the first civil war just after the Bucks lost the IWGP tag titles to G.O.D., basically a sudden/anticlimatic end is in tune, compared to those I’d say BCWG had a better end.

  13. Yeah to me BC is the best stable ever each one got better IMO Balor’s version was a badass gimmick by itself, AJ Styles and The Young Bucks took it to the next level by being untouchable and unquestionable in the ring, The Elite lived up to and beyond their name adding Omega, Cody, Adam Cole, Then Jay White switched it to pure evil heels to the point that they even added EVIL. Jay White and BC where so dominant and so evil that Finlay & War Dogs came off as a new version of Bullet Club.

    This is Bullet Club starting from the bottom. Watching Finlay/Gabe/Drilla/Clark/Alex grow was epic and im not really sure how we missed out on a huge War Dogs vs The Elite crossover…..im pretty pissed actually. Gabe vs Omega felt like the beginning of a real war for the War Dogs. They did indy matches against the Young Bucks
    but i wanted Finlay attacking Hangman, Gabe attacking Omega and Drilla attacking Ibushi. There was so much left to do. Finlay was so ruthless few years ago now hes a silly guy and stuff. I miss the David Finlay that beat Ospreay and Moxley in the Tokyo Dome

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