Wheeler Yuta recently abandoned the Best Friends, including Trent Barretta, and joined up with William Regal, Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley by joining the top stable in AEW, the Blackpool Combat Club.
As part of the Best Friends, he was a perennial loser, being the fall guy in multiple losses and even getting defeated in most singles matches he had on TV. He lost so much that nobody was even aware he had a finishing move until he joined the BCC.
The mentoring by Regal has given him a new attitude and helped him move up the card in AEW. He has been in some main event matches, won the ROH Pure Championship and even competed in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament in New Japan.
He will team with Shota Umino and Eddie Kingston against Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki at Forbidden Door in the latest of a long list of achievements since joining the Blackpool Combat Club.
However, before he joined up, Trent and Wheeler Yuta looked set to do battle in AEW, and there were plans for a big feud between the two before plans were torn up by Tony Khan.
Trent on Wheeler Yuta
Before he became one of the most popular wrestlers in AEW, Wheeler Yuta was teammates with Trent, Chuck Taylor and Orange Cassidy in the Best Friends.
For the bulk of his run, he and Trent did not see eye to eye. While Trent was out with injury for an extended period, Yuta became a key member of the group and teamed with Orange Cassidy and Chuck Taylor in his absence.
When he did return to AEW, the duo never quite saw eye to eye. There were heightened tensions between the two that were evident during backstage segments on AEW Dynamite, and they both came close to blows on numerous points over the weeks.
However, the match never took place and soon Yuta joined Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley and William Regal in the Blackpool Combat Club. However, in an interview with the Battleground podcast, that was not always the plan for Trent and Wheeler Yuta.
“The way he got put in Best Friends was super weird and a hard situation for him to be in as a wrestler. Like, ‘Who is this new guy who is suddenly best friends with these guys I knew?'”.
“The whole reason I was being upset with it is that we were planning on doing our own angle where we would eventually have a match and he would win my respect,” he said. “I was like, ‘He needs something for people to grab on to.'”
“That’s why we did that, then it ended up working out a completely different way where I was mean to him for no reason and then he left.” (h/t to Fightful)
Trent vs Wheeler Yuta
Despite being heavily teased, including with a backstage confrontation between the two, AEW never booked Trent vs Wheeler Yuta.
While in the middle of their storyline, Wheeler Yuta was pivoted into a storyline with the Blackpool Comabt Club. He gained the respect of William Regal by fighting hard in matches against Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley, eventually shaking Regal’s hand and joining the club.
Meanwhile, despite never seeing Wheeler Yuta vs Trent, both men have gone onto better things. Trent has been locked in a feud with Will Ospreay in recent weeks, and will be part of a three-team match for the ROH and IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team titles at Forbidden Door.
