Over the past year, wrestling fans on social media have followed along with the good-natured rivalry between the Elite of the Bullet Club (consisting of Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks) and The New Day. The Bullet Club, of course, are property of New Japan (and appear in Ring of Honor from time to time), so it’s a long shot that the two factions will mix it up, but that doesn’t stop them from barking at each other online.
Wrestle Kingdom 11 is coming up on Jan. 4 and as per tradition, it’s New Japan’s biggest show of the year. It’s also the date when most New Japan wrestlers’ contracts end. Last year, AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows left the company after Wrestle Kingdom in January of this year (yep, that was THIS YEAR), and although the Young Bucks have already re-signed with New Japan, there’s speculation that Omega will be WWE-bound if he doesn’t defeat Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. But that’s not going to stop him from continuing to beat the New Day vs. Bullet Club drum.
Omega’s recent appearance on Ring Rust Radio to promote Wrestle Kingdom — which you can hear above — went all over the place and touched on a bunch of different things, but he elaborated on how much he wanted the New Day/Bullet Club feud to go down.
“In a fantasy situation, it would be great for not only us to go there to have a match, but I would love for it to go both ways. I would love to have New Day come to New Japan as well so that both types of fans would be able to see the differences in product and wrester. I really do feel like surprising people.
“I wouldn’t want to be built up through video packages. I would love for it to just be really spur of the moment and take people off guard and make it just something they would never see coming. People understand that this is an unlikely scenario and people that are contracted can’t just waltz in the company and issue challenges. There’s so much more that goes behind the business of pro wrestling and the politics you can’t do it.
“For it to work that way would be such a treat for the fans and that’s the only reason why we were ever so serious about doing it to begin with. We didn’t care about contracts, who’s going to win, who’s going to lose, what day it is going to be, which days is this guy going to miss; we just wanted it to happen. The fans wanted it to happen and even the fans that didn’t know about our social media rivalry wanted it to happen.
“I do think if they saw it, people would enjoy it and they would love it. This is something that would cause pro wrestling to grow even more so as a whole. Not WWE, not New Japan; just pro wrestling. Cool stuff like that just doesn’t happen anymore. Everything is more predictable, in my opinion.”
I think anyone who’s aware of the Bullet Club wants a match against the New Day to go down any way possible, and I do believe that it would be awesome for the sport and would get people interested all over the world. But I do have to disagree with Omega on one thing: 2016 was anything but predictable when it came to interpromotional shenanigans. Between the CWC, Finn Bálor showing up on indie events, WWE contracted stars mixing it up with TNA wrestlers on EVOLVE shows, and the announcement of the UK Tournament, it’s pretty clear that anything goes these days.
Here’s hoping New Day pops up at Wrestle Kingdom 11 to cost the Young Bucks their title match or something. I’m not counting on it, but I wouldn’t dare be sour if it happened.
