Wrestling / Blackpool Combat Club

Forged in Combat. Bound by Blood.
From left to right: William Regal, Claudio Castagnoli, Bryan Danielson, and Wheeler Yuta
Front row: Jon Moxley.

The Blackpool Combat Club is a Professional Wrestling Power Stable currently appearing on All Elite Wrestling, comprised of Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta. The group was formerly managed by William Regal. Young NJPW wrestler and Moxley's protégé Shota Umino is an honorary member.

In January 2022, Jon Moxley had returned to AEW after going away for rehab, and later garnered the attention of Bryan Danielson (who had debuted in AEW the past September). Danielson proposed to Moxley that they join forces. Moxley responded by challenging him to a match at Revolution 2022.

At the event, Moxley defeated Danielson, but the two continued to brawl after the bell, only to be broken up by a debuting William Regal (who had previously mentored both men earlier in their careers). Regal demanded that they shake hands, to which they obliged, officially forming The Blackpool Combat Club.

The group would later gain two additional members: Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli. Yuta broke away from the group Best Friends when he expressed a desire to join the BCC, resulting in a series of matches against Moxley that ultimately earned him not only the group's respect, but also formally inducted him to their ranks. Castagnoli made his AEW debut at the pay-per-view, Forbidden Door, as Danielson's surprise replacement in a match against New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Zack Sabre Jr. Regal would leave the group by December 2022 after his AEW contract expired.

At the time of this writing, Moxley is a former three-time AEW World Champion, former AEW International Champion and current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, Castagnoli is a former two-time Ring of Honor World Champion and Yuta is a three-time ROH Pure Champion.

"These tropes are forged in combat!:"

• Artifact Title: The group got its name because they were founded and managed by William Regal, who began his wrestling career in Blackpool, England. The name stuck even after Regal's departure from AEW in December 2022.
• Anti-Hero: The team has fought both face (which include Yuta's former Best Friends teammates) and heel teams with the same level of brutality but were nevertheless tweeners whose main feuds were with the Jericho Appreciation Society and Suzuki-gun. At least until early 2023, when they turned more openly heel.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • When Moxley decided to help his buddy, Eddie Kingston, against the Jericho Appreciation Society, the entire BCC have his back. Both factions have fought in an Anarchy in the Arena match (in which the JAS won) and a Blood and Guts match (in which the BCC won) that turned every members of both factions into raw meat and yet the feud took until December end. The feud also has both factions fighting for the Interim AEW World Championship, ROH World Championship and ROH Pure Championship.
  • Adam Page and The Dark Order which cultivated in the BCC turning heel after Moxley and Hangman's feud worsened.
  • The Elite, going so far as to attack anyone even remotely associated with them, with Bryan Danielson especially declaring the BCC as the only real professional wrestlers around, and that everyone else are amateurs. This feud also rekindles Moxley's own feud with Kenny Omega since 2021, albeit with the face/heel dynamic reversed and reuniting Page with his former group to fight a common enemy.
• Ax-Crazy: Especially as heels. At best, they'll needlessly brutalize other wrestlers to the point of hospitalizing them. At worst, they'll outright maim their adversaries, even being willing to gouge their foes' eyes out.
• Badass Creed:
  • "Forged in combat, bound by blood."
  • "Step up or get stepped on."
• Blood Knight: They crave blood and violence and will fight anyone who's willing to step up.
• Call-Back: Prior to the stable's formation, Jon Moxley stated to Bryan Danielson that he won't "stand side-by-side with nobody 'til I bleed with them first". Wheeler Yuta's induction into the Combat Club had him bleed profusely in his third match during 2022 against Moxley, ultimately convincing William Regal to allow Yuta into the Club.
• Canon Welding: When introducing Claudio Castagnoli as a member of the Blackpool Combat Club, William Regal makes reference to his final match before in-ring retirement was with Claudio in NXT.
• Dark Is Not Evil: As faces, they wear predominantly black and red gear and can be incredibly ruthless and aggressive in the ring, but they have routinely opposed the Jericho Appreciation Society, who are outright heels.
• Everyone Has Standards: While the BCC have no qualms beating people within an inch of their lives, they do draw the line at literally murdering someone. This was demonstrated during the Anarchy in the Arena match at Double or Nothing 2022, in which Eddie Kingston (who the BCC were teaming with alongside Santana and Ortiz) entered the ring with a can of gasoline and poured it on Jericho while Bryan Danielson had him in a submission hold, intending to set him on fire. Danielson took major issue with that and confronted Kingston over it.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • On the 3/8/23 episode of Dynamite, Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli defeated John Silver and Alex Reynolds of The Dark Order in a tag team match. They viciously attacked them after the match and assaulted Evil Uno and "Hangman" Adam Page (who had defeated Moxley in a Texas Death match at Revolution 2023). This consequently turned the entire group heel.
  • Bryan Danielson, who was not present at the show, would follow suit on the 3/29/2023 episode of Dynamite, when the BCC ambushed Kenny Omega after his IWGP United States Championship match. Danielson would show up appearing to save Kenny...only to blindside him with a Busaiku Knee and assist the group in assaulting him.
• Foil:
  • They are one to the Jericho Appreciation Society. Both factions were founded around the same time, but while the BCC is focused on promoting serious wrestling, the JAS wants to put sports entertainment first, an obvious counterpoint which resulted in Regal's fight camp coming to blows with Jericho's gang of entertainers in short order.
  • To The Shield, Moxley's previous faction in the WWE. While both factions are known for their No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, the Shield was mostly a closely-knit team (until a certain betrayal) while the BCC was initially formed by two bitter rivals held together by a very influential man. Furthermore, the BCC is a heroic faction turned heel while the Shield is the opposite. In comparison to Moxley/Ambrose's role in both factions, he is the face of the BCC, in contrast to his time in the Shield where Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins were favored over him.
• Foreshadowing: When Bryan Danielson proposed an alliance to Jon Moxley, one of the names he mentioned for potential young wrestlers to mentor was Wheeler Yuta. Guess who wound up joining the group in April.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: By the conclusion of All Out 2023, the group transitioned from heels into tweeners:
  • After over two months out of action, Bryan Danielson made a surprise return on the 9/2/23 episode of Collision to sign a contract for a strap match against Ricky Starks. He did so to come to the aid of Ricky Steamboat, a man Danielson respects who Starks had beaten with his own belt.
  • After Jon Moxley defeated Orange Cassidy to win the International Championship, the group came out to celebrate the title victory. Notably, they left Cassidy alone and the group left the arena through the right-hand side of the stage, which is typically reserved by babyfaces.
• Honorary True Companions: Jon Moxley's old tag-team partner Eddie Kingston frequently allies with the BCC, along with his friends Santana and Ortiz. It helps that the three of them hate the Jericho Appreciation Society just as much as the BCC do (Santana and Ortiz were formerly Jericho's stablemates until he turned on them, and Kingston has had a heated rivalry with Jericho ever since they faced each other at AEW Revolution 2022).
• Irony: In response to getting injured and needing a replacement for a match, the one member with enough heelish arrogance to come out of the left tunnel (Danielson) would induct the one member with pure babyface virtue (Claudio).
• Loud of War: In both of the Anarchy in the Arena matches the BCC participated, they intentionally left Moxley's entrance, "Wild Things", continue playing even after the bell begins in order as a form of musical warfare to mess with the opposing team's minds. In the 2022 match, Chris Jericho has to rip out the soundboard in order to get the music to end while in the 2023 match, the Young Bucks have to kick the lead singer of the Violent Idols band.
• Named After Someone Famous: The group gets its name from Blackpool, England, where William Regal started his wrestling career.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The faction's M.O. during a tag team match— each one of them will hold one of their opponents in an abdominal stretch and elbow their heads simultaneously (Danielson, however, holds his target's wrists in a surfboard stretch while stomping on their head.)
• Old Master: William Regal is retired^note retired by Claudio, no less, as he frequently mentions when commentating on his matches but is passing on everything he learned during his multi-decade career, from techniques to ring psychology to effective Combat Pragmatism, to the members of the club, several of whom are former students of his from even before the group was formed.
• Power Stable:
  • The Centerpiece: Jon Moxley (2022), Bryan Danielson (2023)
  • The Heir Apparent: Wheeler Yuta
  • The Enforcer: Bryan Danielson (2022), Jon Moxley (2023)
  • The Muscle: Claudio Castagnoli
  • The Manager: William Regal before his late-2022 departure
• Scars Are Forever: Discussed by William Regal, who states that when the BCC hurts you, they want to make damn sure you never forget it.
  Regal: If you gave a hundred people a knife and told them to inflict punishment on the person that they hate the most in the world, 99% of those people would stab that person. The people in the Blackpool Combat Club wouldn't. We would cut you down the cheek because being stabbed you will forget about in six months. I prefer to think that all of us in the Blackpool Combat Club would get more pleasure out of knowing that every morning that you wake up, you're going look in the mirror, and you're going to remember us because of the scars we left on you.
  • A more traditional example occurs when the BCC assaults Don Callis and causes his forehead to bleed, leaving a scar that has not fully healed.
• Sixth Ranger: NJPW wrestler Shota Umino, who will frequently join with his master Moxley whenever the BCC crosses into New Japan, such as when Mox and Claudio challenged the team of Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii for the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships at NJPW Dominion 2023.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • In terms of in-ring philosophies, they are the hard-hitting aggressive technicians to the JAS' sports entertainment-oriented performers.
  • They also have this dynamic with The Elite, the former being the flashy, non-stop action performers to the BCC's precision focused, relentlessly violent technicians.
• Token Good Teammate: Prior to the group's heel turn, Claudio Castagnoli was the only member of the group who was an unequivocal babyface.
• Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed with Bryan Danielson. While he's not villainous per se (more arrogant and haughty than evil), he's the only member of the group that's outright heel, as he makes his entrance through the left tunnel on the stage, which is typically reserved for heels. Averted following the group's heel turn, where he's just as ruthless as the others.
• Villainous Legacy: Regal's treacherous final lesson at Full Gear 2022 left a great impact on the team even though he would leave AEW two weeks later. Mox, who suffered said lesson firsthand, would become more aggressive in his fights with Adam Page while Castagnoli would force Yuta to fight even more ruthlessly than when he first joined the group. Danielson tried to avenge MJF's subsequent greater double-cross of Regal to no avail, then went home to his family and returned with a grandmaster mindset similar to Regal. By March 2023, everyone in the group turned heel fully.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The group, Bryan Danielson especially, want AEW to be the best wrestling promotion in existence, and to groom a future generation of wrestlers to better than the Club themselves. Problem is, their idea of doing so involves mercilessly beating said wrestlers within an inch of their lives and attacking them in brutal fashion. This was made especially evident after they turned heel.
• Wild Card: According to Bryan Danielson at the media scrum following All Out 2023, the group has cemented themselves as this, stating that they're neither face or heel.
  Danielson: Oh, I mean I like to think that we can straddle the line between anything. Like so...I didn't wrestle necessarily today like a good guy. I strapped Ricky Starks in the face. But...I love Ricky Steamboat, and he refereed a match between me and Low-Ki in 2001 that really helped put my career on the map. He's refereed, actually, multiple of my matches, he was a producer for the WWE when I was there. He is just a legendary figure in professional wrestling who continues to give and give and give. So, like, coming out to do this thing with him, it puts me in a good guy role, but you could also see me, at the very end, stabbing somebody with a screwdriver. Right? There's nothing that's "Oh, Bryan Danielson wouldn't do that." Like, he might do that, so I think that's within the realm of our characters.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • If a wrestler can prove themselves by fighting its members in the ring to such a notable degree, they'll not only earn the Club's respect, but they might even earn a spot on their roster. (But they need to maintain the supply of Worthy Opponents, too.)
  • After several matches against Bryan Danielson, Daniel Garcia has earned the respect of nearly half of the BCC. This is notable when not only was Wheeler Yuta not upset when Garcia defeated him for the ROH Pure Championship and even shook hands with him afterward, but Danielson himself offered to put the title around Garcia's waist.

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