Post by HMARK Center on Nov 20, 2017 21:39:22 GMT -5
Going back and looking over some NJPW booking over the past couple of years, something kind of stuck out to me: part of the reason Gedo likes the large scale arranging of his roster into stables is that it helps to hype up big main events when you can have the two guys on a collision course with one another go through their rival stable's members before they finally reach one another. For example, in 2016 Kenny Omega's year was supposed to start with winning the IC title off of Nakamura (he at least pinned Nak clean in their New Years Dash tag match), and he then spent a good portion of the latter half of the year going through CHAOS members YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto on his way to challenge Okada at Wrestle Kingdom. Similarly, Tetsuya Naito has had a great mini-feud with Tomohiro Ishii this year, which serves as his clear stepping stone to challenging Okada this coming January, while Okada dealt with EVIL.
In these cases, both CHAOS and LIJ are stables with clear leaders/aces in Okada and Naito, as well as clear heavyweight "gatekeepers" to those guys in the form of Goto and Ishii in CHAOS (hell, you could argue that Ishii and Goto are the gatekeepers to the NJPW main event scene, in general) and EVIL and SANADA in LIJ. It's an easy, effective story to tell, and creates a clear roster hierarchy, something that wrestling usually benefits from having. Even Tananashi's feud with Naito in 2017 involved Naito defending his IC title against Juice Robinson and Michael Elgin on his way to face the Ace, and it made the whole thing work better by having him go through the top names in the Seki-gun.
This brings us to Bullet Club, where a problem emerges. As of right now, Bullet Club is a stable with a clear heavyweight title-deserving leader in Kenny Omega, but only one real full-time gatekeeper in the form of Bad Luck Fale. Personally, I love Fale and the role he plays in NJPW's roster, but both times that Okada was getting ready to face Kenny, both at WK 11 and at this past summer's Dominion show, the only Bullet Club member Okada had a high profile match with beforehand was Fale...and it was basically because Fale was the only other BC contender people would accept being in a main event level match with Okada.
For the record that's not meant as a slam on Tama Tonga, who after a shaky start with Roa did manage to get GoD working a lot better as a unit, but Tama's never been built up as a top level heavyweight singles guy, so he can't serve in the role that, say, SANADA could for Naito. It means there's a bit of a hole in Bullet Club's ranks: the other major stables have IWGP heavyweight title contenders, but they have at least two "guard dog" types the crowd can take seriously as threats to guys on the Okada/Naito/Omega tier.
It'd be fair to say that Suzuki-Gun has the same issue, given that the only other serious contender singles heavyweight they have is Zach Sabre Jr. and he's not there full time, but Suzuki-Gun hasn't been consistently challenging for the top strap so I'm leaving them out of this conversation. One might also wonder if Cody was supposed to fill that role for BC when he first arrived, but I don't think Cody was ever intended to be a full-time Bullet Club member in Japan (he's more like the leader of Bullet Club USA, for lack of a better name), where this gap in BC's ranks is most pronounced.
So to make a long story short ("too late"), while some people feel there's too many BC members already I'm of the mind that they should be on the lookout for one more guy they could sign up full time who would be willing to spend a lot of time in Japan to serve alongside Fale as a gatekeeper for Kenny Omega, and who'd have the talent necessary to potentially take over the stable as its ace should Kenny leave or turn face. I don't mind BC's roster size when you consider that a good chunk of it is more like a USA-based offshoot, but it begs this question: who's out there, or who could be out there as a free agent in the near future, who could serve that role well? I admit that when there was all that buzz a few weeks ago about backstage WWE drama, I had visions in my head of Kevin Steen/Owens appearing in the black and white and pulling it off, but that was more of a pipe dream than anything serious.
In these cases, both CHAOS and LIJ are stables with clear leaders/aces in Okada and Naito, as well as clear heavyweight "gatekeepers" to those guys in the form of Goto and Ishii in CHAOS (hell, you could argue that Ishii and Goto are the gatekeepers to the NJPW main event scene, in general) and EVIL and SANADA in LIJ. It's an easy, effective story to tell, and creates a clear roster hierarchy, something that wrestling usually benefits from having. Even Tananashi's feud with Naito in 2017 involved Naito defending his IC title against Juice Robinson and Michael Elgin on his way to face the Ace, and it made the whole thing work better by having him go through the top names in the Seki-gun.
This brings us to Bullet Club, where a problem emerges. As of right now, Bullet Club is a stable with a clear heavyweight title-deserving leader in Kenny Omega, but only one real full-time gatekeeper in the form of Bad Luck Fale. Personally, I love Fale and the role he plays in NJPW's roster, but both times that Okada was getting ready to face Kenny, both at WK 11 and at this past summer's Dominion show, the only Bullet Club member Okada had a high profile match with beforehand was Fale...and it was basically because Fale was the only other BC contender people would accept being in a main event level match with Okada.
For the record that's not meant as a slam on Tama Tonga, who after a shaky start with Roa did manage to get GoD working a lot better as a unit, but Tama's never been built up as a top level heavyweight singles guy, so he can't serve in the role that, say, SANADA could for Naito. It means there's a bit of a hole in Bullet Club's ranks: the other major stables have IWGP heavyweight title contenders, but they have at least two "guard dog" types the crowd can take seriously as threats to guys on the Okada/Naito/Omega tier.
It'd be fair to say that Suzuki-Gun has the same issue, given that the only other serious contender singles heavyweight they have is Zach Sabre Jr. and he's not there full time, but Suzuki-Gun hasn't been consistently challenging for the top strap so I'm leaving them out of this conversation. One might also wonder if Cody was supposed to fill that role for BC when he first arrived, but I don't think Cody was ever intended to be a full-time Bullet Club member in Japan (he's more like the leader of Bullet Club USA, for lack of a better name), where this gap in BC's ranks is most pronounced.
So to make a long story short ("too late"), while some people feel there's too many BC members already I'm of the mind that they should be on the lookout for one more guy they could sign up full time who would be willing to spend a lot of time in Japan to serve alongside Fale as a gatekeeper for Kenny Omega, and who'd have the talent necessary to potentially take over the stable as its ace should Kenny leave or turn face. I don't mind BC's roster size when you consider that a good chunk of it is more like a USA-based offshoot, but it begs this question: who's out there, or who could be out there as a free agent in the near future, who could serve that role well? I admit that when there was all that buzz a few weeks ago about backstage WWE drama, I had visions in my head of Kevin Steen/Owens appearing in the black and white and pulling it off, but that was more of a pipe dream than anything serious.
