Karl Anderson Responds To Those Who Say Bullet Club Is Dead

Karl Anderson will undoubtedly forever be known for his role in the creation of the Bullet Club. The group of Western heels started in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2013 and became an instant cultural phenom, but the group really boomed to global success when stars like AJ Styles and Kenny Omega joined the fold. Bullet Club has remained a mainstay in the professional wrestling zeitgeist ever since, but that doesn't mean there aren't those with doubts. 

At the start of 2019, Omega, the Young Bucks, Adam Page, and Cody Rhodes all left NJPW and the Bullet Club behind for their new promotion, All Elite Wrestling. With most of its popular Western stars gone, some have go so far as to call the Bullet Club a "dead" faction. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Anderson addressed the idea.

"Each time somebody has talked s*** about Bullet Club or started to say Bullet Club is dead, or there's too many members, something else cool happens. It just remains hot," he said. Anderson pointed to the great factions in professional wrestling history — the Four Horsemen, the New World Order, D-Generation X — and how their success is measured by the individual successes of their members. He then pointed to the success of Bullet Club alumni in AEW, Impact, and WWE, including the WWE title reigns of Styles, Omega's belt-collecting AEW World Championship reign, and Finn Balor's short-lived inaugural WWE Universal Championship reign. 

The Bullet Club's ongoing relevancy comes down in part to its ability to be reinvented by new stars, and Anderson argues that it currently has exactly that kind of star. "Bullet Club has been reinvigorated again in NJPW with Jay White, who's turning into a massive star," he said, "Now he'll always be attached to the Bullet Club."