New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Strong Style Evolved show is in the books and although it was pretty long, it was well worth it to see the whole thing. Cody Rhodes put forth an outstanding performance as did the rest of the Bullet Club. In case you’re wondering, the Bullet Club is still fine.
But during the show, a few people certainly noticed the weightlifting belts Cody and The Young Bucks wore to the ring.
“[Cody] may have a back injury,” Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio. “He may have an injury or maybe they’re just trying to market weight belts? Bullet Club weight belts which would actually make all the sense in the world since they market everything else.”
You can never count out the inventiveness of the Bullet Club when it comes to marketing so weightlifting belts could very well be on the way for all we know. After all, it would be a nice way to get their brand in gyms all over the world. But it should also be noted that Matt Jackson also wrestled in a weightlifting belt.
Matt is notorious for selling his back and Nick picks up for the slack on a constant basis. This was actually a theme for the Golden Lovers vs Young Bucks match at Strong Style Evolved. Therefore, Matt Jackson could just be incredibly good at selling his back, he’s actually hurt, or it might be a combination of all three which is likely.
Therefore, those weightlifting belts might have been a clever way to both market a possible product and assist with an injury.
It was also noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that Kenny Omega suffered a pretty gnarly looking face injury during the main event match as well. He said it could be a broken orbital bone, but Bryan Alvarez said Omega would probably immediately have much more swelling if that was the case.
Either way, the jury seems to be out on how banged up the Bullet Club guys are after Strong Style Evolved but at least they had an epic night of in-ring competition in Long Beach.
Catch up on some of the trending news stories from the past 24 hours by clicking below:
- SPOILER: WWE has big plans for Samoa Joe
- WATCH: Alexa Bliss wants a match with a WWE Hall Of Famer
- Kevin Owens changes name on Twitter and loses verification
- Kenny Omega on WWE’s treatment of homosexual characters
- Reason why Daniel Bryan looked so good in the ring on SmackDown Live
News from The Wrestling Observer website was used in this post. For more on this story please visit WrestlingObserver.com. Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez’ WrestlingObserver.com is the leading source for professional wrestling news. Click here for subscription information. Members get exclusive access to insider news from Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez, daily audio shows, breaking news audio, the Wrestling Observer newsletter, newsletter archives, thousands of hours of archived radio shows, and much more. Thanks to Still Real To Us for the transcription.
