NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 For Beginners: Part 2

Jay White (Bullet Club) vs. Kazuchika Okada (CHAOS)

There’s no belt at stake here. This one’s all about pride.

It’s well documented that this is Okada’s first Wrestle Kingdom appearance since 2012 in which he is neither challenging for the title, nor holding it. And while his title loss left him reeling in the latter half of the year – his entire G1 run felt like a very public nervous breakdown – he’s found purpose in revenge as he takes on Jay White in what amounts to a large-scale grudge match.

2018’s premier snake in the grass Jay White has found his stride as a smug, detestable villain, and he’s really, really good at it. Turning on his CHAOS stablemates was inevitable, but played to perfection – you can sense his former teammates bristling in his presence, and while he’s busy lording it up with his new Bullet Club buddies he’s left CHAOS in crisis with his matter-of-fact announcement that there is a traitor in their midst.

It’s likely that this storyline will finally come to fruition at Wrestle Kingdom, and likelier still that it will have some kind of bearing on the outcome of the match. But the outcome is still ultimately uncertain: a Jay White win over Okada at the Tokyo Dome would be a hell of a statement to make, and would serve to propel him to stardom as NJPW’s biggest heel.

With the demise of the Cleaner, there’s certainly a gap in the market for a smirking gaijin assassin, and Jay White has proven in 2018 that he’s ready to take the role on. He’s already said as much, vowing in a press conference to destroy everything Okada has built in NJPW.

But Okada’s on the road to redemption. With the loss of his title and his mentor, Gedo, the only thing he has left is CHAOS – and even that is looking uncertain. There’s no gold to be found here, but Okada is no longer a man defined by a title, and with his G1 loss to the Switchblade he badly needs a big win on a big stage to restore the confidence he’s lost. It’ll take the Rainmaker to take Jay White down.

This one could go either way, which is one of the things that makes it such an exciting clash even though there’s no gold at stake. There is, however, the unwelcome possibility of a no-contest: the Bullet Club OG’s have form when it comes to interrupting matches, and with the mole storyline bubbling away in the background the likelihood of interference is pretty high.

Recent months have seen Okada form a tentative alliance with former rival with Tanahashi, but an all-out brawl between CHAOS and Bullet Club is the most likely outcome should NJPW decide to roll with this angle. Let’s hope they don’t: a match like this deserves a definitive result.

Josiah’s Prediction: Jay White

Laura’s Prediction: Jay White

Recommended Viewing:

Jay White vs Kazuchika Okada, G1 Climax 2018 14/7/18

Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega, Wrestle Kingdom 11 4/1/17

Jay White vs Kenny Omega, New Beginning in Sapporo 28/1/18

For those unfamiliar with CHAOS and Bullet Club, let’s take a brief look at the histories of these factions and where they currently stand in relation to one another:

Spotlight on Bullet Club

Bullet Club is a faction with a long and illustrious history in NJPW. Originally the brainchild of one Prince Devitt – now better known as Finn Balor – the faction first formed in 2013 as a villainous gaijin stable. Bullet Club has seen members come and go over the years – AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks have all counted themselves among its numbers at some time or another. And of its original membership, only Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale still remain,

The ‘Bullet Club OGs’, as they came to be known, were instrumental in the further dismantling and rebuilding of the ever-shifting faction earlier in the year. With fellow Tongan Tanga Loa at their side, the trio kept their own counsel while Cody and Kenny Omega engaged in a power struggle for control of Bullet Club.

When their coup came, it wasn’t without prior warning: Fale and Tama Tonga were there at the beginning, and have watched as Bullet Club has become untethered, drifting away from its original purpose: domination.

A long and tiresome campaign of interference saw the OGs wreak havoc throughout the G1, destabilising the tournament with run-ins and other shenanigans. And while it might have been a tad overdone, they got the message across: the sanctity of the G1 and its traditions mean nothing to the Bullet Club.

Controversial tactics kept them in the spotlight long after they crashed out of the tournament proper. With new recruit Taiji Ishimori on board, and Cody and the Elite splintering away, the revitalised Bullet Club found itself with a new purpose.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that Jay White would end up leading the new-look Bullet Club. Omega’s previous attempt to recruit him went badly awry, and though White allied himself with CHAOS he was never a good fit. Sowing discord among his teammates was no accident, and when White’s betrayal was revealed it was surprising only to those in the ring with him.

His attitude towards factions is no impediment to his Bullet Club membership: they represent an alternative to the New Japan orthodoxy, a way of doing things that owes less to the insular tradition of Japanese wrestling factions, and more to the notion of a group united in a common goal.

Spotlight on CHAOS

Initially formed in the wake of a mass betrayal, CHAOS was first born in 2009 when former members of the Great Bash Heel stable turned en masse on leader Togi Makabe. A brand new faction emerged from the ashes: led by Shinsuke Nakamura and Toru Yano, CHAOS positioned itself as NJPW’s premier heel faction.

These days, things are a little different. Boasting talent like Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Tomohiro Ishii, Roppongi 3K and, er, Yoshi-Hashi, CHAOS is no longer the dominant heel group it once was, opting instead to operate as more of a loose collective of comrades enjoying individual success and popularity, and Yoshi-Hashi. They’ve feuded with the likes of Suzuki-Gun and Los Ingobernables de Japon. And they’ve been a pretty harmonious bunch for the most part – until Jay White happened.

Although CHAOS began life as a heel faction, Jay White stood out like a sore thumb among their ranks. The young troublemaker seemed an awkward fit, and it didn’t take long before he decided to challenge Okada for leadership of the group.

This came at an inopportune moment for Okada, reeling from his championship loss to Kenny Omega: a personal crisis stacked on top of Jay White’s continual stirring led to low-level disquiet in the CHAOS ranks until, at Destruction in Kobe, White and Okada’s former mentor Gedo turned on Okada in the middle of the ring.

And as if White’s betrayal hadn’t already sparked enough strife in the formerly serene stable, his insistence that there is a mole in their ranks has caused further dissent. Could it be the apparently unstable Chuckie T? The jovial prankster Toru Yano, who has form for this kind of thing? Or could one of the Roppongi boys be looking to strike out on their own? Is there even a mole at all?

Expect the next instalment of this story at Wrestle Kingdom, where the future of one of NJPW’s longest-running stables could well hang in the balance.