Shota Umino teamed with Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli at NJPW Dominion 6.4, but is he part of the Blackpool Combat Club?
The Blackpool Combat Club is a faction formed in AEW by William Regal in 2022, following AEW Revolution.
The English wrestling legend brought together Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson to form a team of fighters, looking to train the young talent of tomorrow into seasoned wrestlers.
With a violent, yet technical, style of wrestling, that have put fear into the entire AEW roster, even defeating The Elite in a five-star match at AEW Double or Nothing 2023.
Over the year since their formation, the group lost William Regal, but added Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli to their ranks, becoming one of the most feared teams in wrestling.
However, Moxley and Castagnoli represented the Blackpool Combat Club in New Japan in 2023, travelling to Osaka for the Dominion 6.4 show.
Here, they teamed up with Moxley’s former protegee Shota Umino to challenge for the NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Championships. Taking on the trio of Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii, it was one of the biggest six-man tags in NJPW history.
While he teamed with the group to take on the NEVER Six-an champions, Shota Umino is not part of the Blackpool Combat Club.
He entered the ring with the group, but did not wear any Blackpool Combat Clun apparel. Wearing a Moxley/Shooter t-shirt and his usual flambouyant entrance attire, he was merely teaming the group on a one-off basis.
He is not an official member of the group, but Shota Umino retains a close friendship from their work together in 2019, when Moxley first came to NJPW as Umino was just a young lion.
The AEW star also refers to him as “Shooter”, a nickname that has stuck over these past four years (hence their t-shirts in the Twitter photo).