Finn Balor revealed on Insight with Chris Van Vliet that the Bullet Club was never supposed to be a faction — the original plan was simply for him to turn heel as a singles act partnered with Bad Luck Fale.
“Bullet Club originally wasn’t supposed to be Bullet Club. It was supposed to be just me and Fale,” Balor said. NJPW booker Gedo later suggested adding Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga to the mix, and once all four members were assembled, Balor had to come up with a connecting concept.
He credited the “real shooter” nickname — which NJPW official Tiger Hattori gave him after Minoru Suzuki called him that in practice — for inspiring the name. “Minoru Suzuki was in the ring with me, he was a legitimate grappler, and I caught him with an armbar. He goes, ‘Ah, Devitt, you’re a real shooter.’ And then Tiger Hattori kind of heard that and every day he’d say, ‘Hey Devitt, you’re the real shooter.’ So this was going on in the locker room for about a year.”
“At the time, Fale was using the hand grenade finish. And then there’s the Machine Gun. And I was the ‘real shooter.’ So I was like, ‘What links us all together?’ And it was Bullet Club.”
He said the group generated enormous heat immediately — so much so that NJPW set up a dedicated phone line just for fan complaints about them. Balor noted he simply wanted to have fun and try something new after years as a babyface. He also praised Doc Gallows and said the WWE locker room misses having him around.
Bullet Club was officially dissolved at NJPW New Year Dash on January 5, 2026. Balor currently feuds with Tama Tonga on SmackDown, who is in a rivalry with Balor stemming from their history in the group.
