Rumors have been circulating today about WWE possibly purchasing the rights to the Bullet Club name. As far as we know, New Japan Pro Wrestling still owns the rights to Bullet Club.
The entire rumor started by a tweet from ProWrestlingTees.com. In the tweet, they claim that they were not able to sell the popular Bullet Club t-shirts anymore due to WWE purchasing the rights. They later stated the tweet was a joke when wrestling fans on Twitter started going crazy about it. Here is their response:
sar·casm noun the use of irony to mock or convey contempt. #BulletClub tees ain’t going nowheres 👍 https://t.co/nH7A0WehsT
— ProWrestlingTees.com (@ProWrestlingTs) January 7, 2016
Shortly after this, RF Video’s Rob Feinstein said that WWE purchased the rights to use the Bullet Club logo. It is unclear where Rob heard this from, or if he has any inside information.
Today’s edition of The Wrestling Observer made note of WWE setting up new Balor Club t-shirts to be released soon. If you didn’t know, Finn Balor was the original leader of Bullet Club and actually started the group with Karl “Machine Gun” Anderson. Also, Meltzer stated that WWE is interested in possibly bringing in other Bullet Club members: Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga.
More fuel to this fire has been added since remaining Bullet Club members, The Young Bucks & Kenny Omega are now referring to themselves as “The Elite.”
Remember the day it all started. This is going to get crazy. #theELITE pic.twitter.com/py1scJ4ViO
— The Young Bucks (@MattJackson13) January 6, 2016
It’s unclear what the future of Bullet Club is in New Japan Pro Wrestling. One would have to believe that they would want to retain the rights to one of the most popular stables in wrestling history. One would have to also wonder if WWE would be willing to use anything involving a gun or a bullet in their marketing with their PG approach to the company.