WWE star Finn Bálor was a guest on Cody Rhodes’ podcast, What Do You Wanna Talk About?, where he discussed various topics, including how he created the name “Bullet Club” for the iconic group in NJPW.
Bálor said, “I was a young boy in New Japan. Before the shows, we would all warm up in the ring, and the young boys would be made to do squats and push-ups and stuff. And then we’d get in the ring with the senior wrestlers, and we’d be stretched, which would be like being shot on basically, and beat up. 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. You’re the real shooter.’ So this was going on in the locker room for about a year. He’d say, ‘Hey, Devitt, you’re a shooter.’ And he’d just do it like that ‘shooter.’ When the time came about a year later, the office came to me and said, ‘Hey, we want to turn you heel. We want to put you with Fale. We need to get you guys a group.’ So then they decided to put in Karl Anderson and Tama. I was trying to think [about] what ties us all together. And at the time, Fale was using the hand grenade finish…similar to Solo Sikoa. 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.”
On receiving royalty check from NJPW during his WWE NXT stint
“I was in NXT about eight months, and I get [a] call from New Japan, and they’re like, ‘Hey, Devitt! Aye! Devitt-chan, we got royalty check for you, man!’ I’m like, ‘Woah, I got a royalty check from New Japan?’ I said, ‘Tiger, thank you so much. How much am I due?’ He goes, ‘Ah, like $118.’ I’m like, ‘$118?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, man, we need your bank details.’ I said, ‘Tiger, give it to charity. I don’t need it. I’m good!’ So I feel like the payoff with Bullet Club, for me at least, was not financial, but I feel, like, it was way more valuable than any dollar amount that I could have been given, from just what it’s given to the business.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
