Bullet Club civil war dominates NJPW Wrestling Dontaku cards

The big story coming out of Sakura Genesis may have been IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada tying Hiroshi Tanahashi’s record number of title defenses and the old ace coming out to challenge him, but with the cards for Wrestling Hi no Kuni and Wrestling Dontaku released today, it’s clear that the big story for these shows is going to be the continuing disintegration of Bullet Club. Let’s take a look.

Wrestling Hi No Kuni (April 29, 2AM Eastern / 11PM Pacific)

• Shota Umino & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi & Yuji Nagata
• Chaos (“Switchblade” Jay White, Rocky Romero, SHO, & YOH) vs. David Finlay, Jushin Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Tiger Mask IV
• Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. Toa Henare & Togi Makabe
• Bullet Club (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) & Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi) vs. Suzuki-gun (Taichi, TAKA Michinoku, Takashi Iizuka, & Zack Sabre, Jr.)
• Chaos (Hirooki Goto, Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, KUSHIDA, & Michael Elgin
• BUSHI vs. El Desperado
• Hiromu Takahashi vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
• Killer Elite Squad (Davey Boy Smith, Jr. & Lance Archer) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & SANADA) (c) (IWGP Tag Team Championship)
• Minoru Suzuki (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito (IWGP Intercontinental Championship)

Wrestling Dontaku Night 1 (May 3, 4AM Eastern / 1AM Pacific)

• Bullet Club (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Ren Narita & Shota Umino
• Jushin Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Tiger Mask IV vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi, Tomoyuki Oka, & Yuji Nagata
• Roppongi 3K (Rocky Romero, SHO, & YOH) vs. Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith, Jr., Lance Archer, & Takashi Iizuka)
• Chaos (Hirooki Goto, “Switchblade” Jay White, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. David Finlay, Juice Robinson, Michael Elgin, Toa Henare, & Togi Makabe
• Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, & Tanga Loa) (c) vs. Bullet Club (Marty Scurll, Matt Jackson, & Nick Jackson) (NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship)
• Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, EVIL, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, & Tetsuya Naito) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, & Zack Sabre, Jr.)
• Chaos (Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA
• Cody Rhodes vs. Kota Ibushi
• Hangman Page vs. Kenny Omega

Wrestling Dontaku Night 2 (May 4, 4AM Eastern / 1AM Pacific)

• Jushin Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Tiger Mask IV vs. Ren Narita, Shota Umino, & Tomoyuki Oka
• Bullet Club (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi & Yuji Nagata
• Roppongi 3K (Rocky Romero, SHO, & YOH) vs. Suzuki-gun (Taichi, TAKA Michinoku, & Takashi Iizuka)
• Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. Toa Henare & Togi Makabe
• Chaos (Hirooki Goto, “Switchblade” Jay White, & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. David Finlay, Juice Robinson, & Michael Elgin
• Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, EVIL, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, & Tetsuya Naito) vs. Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith, Jr., El Desperado, Lance Archer, Minoru Suzuki, & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
• Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, & Tanga Loa) & Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi) vs. Bullet Club (Cody Rhodes, Hangman Page, Marty Scurll, Matt Jackson, & Nick Jackson)
• KUSHIDA vs. Will Ospreay (c) (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship)
• Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada (c) (IWGP Heavyweight Championship)

That’s a lot of matches to take in but we’ll try to hit the highlights. First and foremost, we know that May 4 is the date the IWGP Heavyweight Championship defense record will either be bested or defended, as well as (assuming his injury doesn’t keep him out for long, of course) Will Ospreay’s next defense of the junior title against day-one New Japan rival KUSHIDA.

And April 29’s Wrestling Hi no Kuni marks both Naito’s chance to reclaim the Intercontinental Championship that he’d rather throw in the garbage than treat as if it had any kind of prestige as well as Killer Elite Squad’s shot at SANADA and a freshly-healed EVIL for the heavyweight tag titles, as well as a fairly hype set of singles matches between juniot tag champs and challengers, which is a nice change of pace.

But it’s the first Wrestling Dontaku show (on the traditional May 3 date the show claims every year) where things get interesting and start to deviate from the usual routine of title challenges being fulfilled. There’s only one title match on the card (more on that in a moment), and on top are two non-title singles matches— a rematch of Cody vs. Kota from Wrestle Kingdom 12 and Omega vs. Page as a natural counterpart to that match after the tag match these four were in at Sakura Genesis.

The title match, as it goes, pits defending NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champions Bad Luck Fale and Guerrillas of Destiny against, surprise, another Bullet Club team of Marty Scurll and the Young Bucks. And that’s not the only place where the line is crossed, as Night 2 has an expanded rematch of the same adding in Golden Lovers and the Rhodes/Page team for full-on ten-man action. Added into all this, Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi remain their own independent unit and will find themselves tagging with Golden Lovers against Suzuki-gun at Wrestling Hi no Kuni to boot.

“Bullet Club is fine,” they say, but even if that’s technically true, being pulled in every direction and forced to fight amongst themselves is going to make it an uphill struggle for sure.

Now, after all that you might be thinking the same thing I was— where are the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team, NEVER Openweight, and IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship defenses they set up at Sakura Genesis? The good news is, they’re happening! The more questionable news is that they’ve been spread along the bigger Road to Wrestling Dontaku shows this year that will be streamed on NJPW World.

The Los Ingobernables de Japon team of BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi will get their shot at Suzuki-gun’s junior tag titles on April 23 in Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall, David Finlay will take on Switchblade for the United States title on April 24, also at Korakuen Hall, and Hirooki Goto will defend the NEVER title against Juice Robinson at the show in Hiroshima on April 27.

Which, well, I wish they’d make the bigger cards as big as possible, but if we’re making room for more Bullet Club drama, I’m kind of okay with spreading things around.

There you have it, folks

Excited to wake up at butt o’clock and check these out, Cagesiders?