While the Bullet Club has gone through many changes over the years; Bad Luck Fale has remained a constant. The original group consisted of him, Prince Devitt, Karl Anderson, and Tama Tonga. When Devitt left the group, AJ Styles took over as the perceived leader.
However, in a new interview with njpw1972.com, Fale stated that Styles never saw himself as the leader, which helped keep the group strong.
"There was a little bit of animosity at first, about him coming in and being the leader of what we had started, y’know. We were bitter but we accepted it," said Fale. "But the best thing that happened was when he came in, won the (IWGP) belt, and nobody knows this story, but we came back to the hotel and he got all of us in a huddle. And he said ‘I know I’ve come in as an outsider, but I’m here to try and make things work with everyone.’ He just addressed the elephant in the room."
"From that night forward… Look, nobody decided there was a leader," Fale continued. "That’s why the Bullet Club worked, because nobody pegged themselves as ‘I’m the leader, I’m the leader’. Because when you become like that, it becomes about the one guy and not the group. So to AJ’s credit he never called himself the leader. That way we were all on the same level. So if someone had a push, everybody supported them. Everybody would be there to say ‘this guy’s the best wrestler in the world’, and we could all rely on the same support."
Styles was kicked out out of the group at New Year's Dash 2016. On that night, Kenny Omega took over the group as the leader. As Fale explains, that's when the group started to crack internally.
"That’s why is to us as the OGs, it all fell apart when Kenny (Omega) took the helm. (The Elite) took it somewhere else and it felt like we weren’t part of the narrative anymore. It was so different to what we had started.
"I don’t blame Kenny," stated Fale "He’s used to focusing on himself, and he took things in a direction that he believed was right. At the same time though, it went against what we had been building for years. It felt like what we had wasn’t there anymore. That brotherhood wasn’t there anymore."
Fale, Tonga, and Tanga Loa split from Omega's portion of the Bullet Club in July. Fale is scheduled to face Toa Henare at Destruction in Hiroshima on Sept. 15.
