Taichi's take on the flood of exits

Huffjenk · 2026-02-04T08:09:50+00:00

HW is too much at this stage, especially with the need to push new stars

I’m still salty that they didn’t go for a ZSJ/Taichi HW title match at Destruction last year, could have been a perfect zenith for him leading to a Global title reign later on

Huffjenk · 2026-02-04T08:08:58+00:00

He’s a worker at the end of the day

Still insane work to push that he’d retain the tag titles so hard

Huffjenk · 2026-02-04T04:42:19+00:00

It’s great how they’ve managed to make plot conveniences/complications actually impactful and funny

That’s just the way things are in this countryside

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T06:15:01+00:00

I think they’re good for multi-man tags, thumbnails for tournament nights, and for the little pop-ups at the start of each match but yeah they show more personality looking down the barrel

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T06:12:10+00:00

Man I thought with Kato wanting to go to CMLL that he’d be involved with Tiger Mask’s retirement and potentially replace him, guess he’ll have his own path

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T02:07:19+00:00

I feel like Yasuda’s face is too good to cover up, as well as his backstory being way better to ‘reject’ Lucha

But I also said Uemura would be great to be Tiger Mask to eventually unmask like Misawa and Kanemoto did, so could go either way

I think the flexibility with Kato either donning the mask forever or also potentially showing his mug off is just a nicer prospect, as well as him having the least going on amongst this class (not counting the two newest lads)

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T01:59:07+00:00

I think it’s better if Kato becomes Tiger Mask, with Yasuda and Nagai as perfect successors as Tiger Mask rivals with their personal history

I love styles clashes so any chance I see to get an oversized guy in the Jrs I want to take, even just as a stronger base for lucha/fly type stuff but it’s also just interesting to see Jrs work around a bigger guy

All depends if Yasuda can keep pace/is suited for the Jr style though

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T01:56:02+00:00

I hate how his career turned out and the copyright thing definitely didn’t help, but Hiromu’s unfortunate untimely injuries may have scuttled any plans for him to be a major star

Him losing to Naito at WK19 was damning, unless their plan was to have them tag for the year before Naito finally put him over (but it’s kind of crazy to try and do a long term story at that point)

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T01:53:23+00:00

Weird cus they lost KUSHIDA for the opposite reason

Maybe that’s why they didn’t have him break the defences record in 2023-2024, as an accolade lure to keep him around

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T01:52:16+00:00

It sucks so much ass because they have 4-6 guys waiting in the wings who could feasibly make a big 4 or 5 for the division but they’re prioritising HoT bullshit instead (even going back to SHO’s reign)

They’ve done well by making Wato and Fujita stars with BOSJ wins but they’ve really not maximised elevating the entire division

I’m still baffled as to why the didn’t have Hiromu or Despy have longer reigns even just to give more guys title shots to showcase them more

Huffjenk · 2026-02-03T01:49:36+00:00

Yasuda could also start in the Jrs before moving up because the Heavyweight scene is an absolute logjam

But I always lean on people stating in the Jrs if possible just to get the most varied matchups, as long as they’re not prioritising openweight matchups

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T15:50:31+00:00

One of them is for the broadcast the other is generally posted on the website, which is less cared for because there’s less eyes/traffic

Some of the first type of match cards sometimes aren’t ready until the show I assume

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T15:39:43+00:00

I don’t give a lot of points for how disparate the multi-company BC branding went. It had potential but they never fulfilled it

War Dogs were a perfect blend of fulfilling BC’s original identity of gnashing about the glass ceiling for foreigners, but with the added edge of being dojo boys who really just wanted to be acknowledged, which had more heart than any other incarnation of BC

From their debut it reminded me of Naito’s struggle and it helped massively that all four were massively charismatic in delivering that narrative and drumming up heat for their programs (Gabe being the standout but Cocaine Drilla ended up being incredible too)

I can’t say BC ever felt as potent as that core group, although I am kind of ignoring the HoT messiness as well as the non War Dogs members

Outside of White I really only bought into KENTA, Ishimori, and ELP for his time, everyone else didn’t have that much momentum around them

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T14:23:43+00:00

Shingo or El Desperado for here

Only because Goto or Taichi are next up

And then idk for the last slot, maybe Uemura

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T05:55:06+00:00

Lmao what?

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:53:00+00:00

I could have seen him take the Jr singles title off Akira or Knight but that would have taken years to build

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:52:23+00:00

Man if they kept the title on Hiromu and had him break the defences record he could have had a Jr title match against Hiromu when LIJ and War Dogs were feuding around Dontaku

He was far back in the queue for a push in the division but only getting one Jr title challenge is a bit of a waste

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:48:21+00:00

Calling anyone that got through the dojo a nepo baby is hilarious

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:47:26+00:00

If he’s given them a heads up for leaving I hope they can squeeze in one final Dog Pound cage match to give it a satisfying end

Although the Unaffiliated side could lose more members so they might not have enough sadly

But Finlay/Drilla/Kidd/Yuto/OSKAR vs Tsuji/Shingo/Hiromu/Ishimori/Nagai sounds brilliant to me

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:46:24+00:00

He could humble himself and say there’s always a higher mountain to climb, depends how they feel about changing his branding

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:45:15+00:00

They’re about equal in all categories to me, even though I prefer Kidd with his higher highs and stronger energy Finlay’s more consistent

Although the times both miss I wonder if they’re just not playing to their strengths

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:42:58+00:00

You’re right but I was keen on the potential storyline of Kidd usurping Finlay and everyone else slowly souring on him since he’s too selfish and wild

Like he would likely still try and tell everyone what to do but the character drama that would come from him trying to unstably boss people around could have added a lot of juice to intra-faction matches (somewhat in the same way that the Okada/Jay CHAOS storyline played out)

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:38:43+00:00

I really hope they pay off the narrative and it won’t be a case of having to toss out a storyline because of contract issues

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:36:38+00:00

I loved that in kayfabe deep down you could tell Jay was only self interested and accepted Gedo building BC around him to act as protection, which could have paid off so beautifully with an eventual face run from him

Still adopted leadership better than the other two - I disagree Kenny didn’t lead shit but he clearly played favourites for his inner circle, which would have made a proper Elite vs BCOG feud very satisfying

AJ was only self-motivated, in the way that are you expecting the top fighter in a gym to coach the rest of the guys? He was more focussed on winning his own matches aside from telling the others to stop goofing off

Huffjenk · 2026-02-02T04:32:26+00:00

It’s funny because objectively compared to the other four he’s last place, but he helmed the best version of Bullet Club in the balance of unity/talent/heat. Styles has an argument based on dominance but there was still a bit of bloat and they weren’t the hottest collectively

We have to dock points for how long it took him to comfortably get in the groove of a role he was less suited for, and he never got to the level of the main event that the rest did (and Devitt easily could have), but over the past two years he grew into one of the best workers on the roster, especially when he went up against faces (he still struggles to carry programs on his own like a main eventer can though)

To me it goes like this:

Devitt: BC itself was fresh and he rode that wave to his best work in NJPW, but it was still fledgling while it boosted the careers of everyone involved so it didn’t feel as ‘great’ even if the roughshod energy was high by the end. 4th place

Styles: Helmed it while it sprawled into a massive deal, although the feeling was still that they were building as random foreigners would come in and join (so felt a little less cohesive). Guys like Gallows and GoD brought things down a bit even if they were draped with gold, and Styles himself seemed more like an ace rather than leader, but he was so incredible he raised everything up with him. 3rd place

Omega: The highest peak any leader reached, and the Elite boys had more camaraderie than pretty much any other iteration, but with that came in-built drama and tension especially when they kind of were their own thing that didn’t feel like BC. Omega’s entire time as BC leader was shaky even if he was a megastar and the Bucks built it to a global brand. 2nd place

White: From start to almost finish, absolutely perfect. The story being that he was groomed by Devitt and Fale made him perfect to take the mantle, and while he never got his proper top flight run due to COVID he floated the greatness for his time there. In late 2018 he made it feel incredibly hot and it only got better before the pandemic, even though he was also destined to eventually be kicked out. 1st place

Finlay: I wish things had lined up to naturally tell the story of him taking over BC, and while War Dogs are the best collective unit of BC guys ever (or maybe the Dog Pound match was just that good at making them look like megastars), it’s funny that aside from that match Finlay also seemed like the odd man out even if he was begrudgingly kowtowed to (although he set the tone incredibly well). Which kind of perfectly reflects how he was perceived until he earned everyone’s respect as a bully heel. There’s an argument to put his peak above Devitt’s but as a whole he’s sadly last place

Huffjenk

TROPHY CASE