It’s kinda insane that the Bullet Club never got figures

[YeehawMan]

The Bullet Club is one of the most influential factions in the history of wrestling, it helped spawn a rival to WWE, has top guys throughout every promotion and has one of the most iconic wrestling t shirts ever, yet we never got one figure of them

How NJPW never capitalised on this is mind blowing, the closet we got was Funko pops. Of all the figures that I hope will be made, Bullet Club one’s are at the top, but it looks like it’ll never happen as everyone is in different promotions where they can’t be licensed, as well as NJPW dropping their deal with Super7

This should’ve been a license to print money but was completely fumbled

[walter7paisley]

Jan 13, 2023 15:38:24 GMT -5 YeehawMan said:

The Bullet Club is one of the most influential factions in the history of wrestling, it helped spawn a rival to WWE, has top guys throughout every promotion and has one of the most iconic wrestling t shirts ever, yet we never got one figure of them

How NJPW never capitalised on this is mind blowing, the closet we got was Funko pops. Of all the figures that I hope will be made, Bullet Club one’s are at the top, but it looks like it’ll never happen as everyone is in different promotions where they can’t be licensed, as well as NJPW dropping their deal with Super7

This should’ve been a license to print money but was completely fumbled

I'm not really sure I understand the whole Bullet Club thing but that does seem strange. There is a Switchblade retro, though.

[@Chair.Shot]

Jan 13, 2023 15:38:24 GMT -5 YeehawMan said:

The Bullet Club is one of the most influential factions in the history of wrestling, it helped spawn a rival to WWE, has top guys throughout every promotion and has one of the most iconic wrestling t shirts ever, yet we never got one figure of them

How NJPW never capitalised on this is mind blowing, the closet we got was Funko pops. Of all the figures that I hope will be made, Bullet Club one’s are at the top, but it looks like it’ll never happen as everyone is in different promotions where they can’t be licensed, as well as NJPW dropping their deal with Super7

This should’ve been a license to print money but was completely fumbled

NJPW was still recovering when Bullet Club took off. The company was mismanaged in many ways and definitely did not know how to capitalize on things while they were still hot. There are a lot of weird politics within the company too…I don’t fully understand them myself.

What I have heard from belt makers/collectors is kind of interesting and it gives an insight into their strange culture: when Naito was IC champion, they didn’t care enough to try and have a replacement belt made. Instead, they actually bought a cheap bootleg and used that instead. They also apparently weren’t paying royalties on some of their belts as I recall.

The should have made BANK on IWGP V4 replicas and the like but instead only wanted to have short runs of higher quality replicas (not thaaat great). Those took forever to come out and were very overpriced. It’s yet another missed opportunity.

The figures not being made really is a shame but it’s a niche market. A lot of people in Japan don’t collect things in the same way we do here, they have a much smaller market, and during their peak, the US market was largely untested. Figures could have been a costly investment at a time in which NJPW was trying to focus on its core business and international expansion without stretching themselves too thin.

[YeehawMan]

Jan 13, 2023 20:44:13 GMT -5 @Chair.Shot said:

Jan 13, 2023 15:38:24 GMT -5 YeehawMan said:

The Bullet Club is one of the most influential factions in the history of wrestling, it helped spawn a rival to WWE, has top guys throughout every promotion and has one of the most iconic wrestling t shirts ever, yet we never got one figure of them

How NJPW never capitalised on this is mind blowing, the closet we got was Funko pops. Of all the figures that I hope will be made, Bullet Club one’s are at the top, but it looks like it’ll never happen as everyone is in different promotions where they can’t be licensed, as well as NJPW dropping their deal with Super7

This should’ve been a license to print money but was completely fumbled

NJPW was still recovering when Bullet Club took off. The company was mismanaged in many ways and definitely did not know how to capitalize on things while they were still hot. There are a lot of weird politics within the company too…I don’t fully understand them myself.

What I have heard from belt makers/collectors is kind of interesting and it gives an insight into their strange culture: when Naito was IC champion, they didn’t care enough to try and have a replacement belt made. Instead, they actually bought a cheap bootleg and used that instead. They also apparently weren’t paying royalties on some of their belts as I recall.

The should have made BANK on IWGP V4 replicas and the like but instead only wanted to have short runs of higher quality replicas (not thaaat great). Those took forever to come out and were very overpriced. It’s yet another missed opportunity.

The figures not being made really is a shame but it’s a niche market. A lot of people in Japan don’t collect things in the same way we do here, they have a much smaller market, and during their peak, the US market was largely untested. Figures could have been a costly investment at a time in which NJPW was trying to focus on its core business and international expansion without stretching themselves too thin.

At the time when Bullet Club was getting deals from hot topic, selling out All in ect they should’ve started merchandising the hell out of the Bullet Club, that’s when at the very least we should’ve gotten figs because it was proven that the Bullet Club was successful in America.

By the time they got their act together and released NJPW figures, everyone had left for AEW and WWE and they had to fill the line out with people like Evil and Bushi and inevitability they sold poorly