Last night on AEW Dynamite, Gabe Kidd and Clark Connors, who were introduced as “The Dogs,” wrestled Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy. The match was a crazy brawl, and Allin and Cassidy won, with Cassidy pinning Connors with the Orange Punch. As Allin and Cassidy were celebrating afterward, however, they were jumped by a shillelagh-wielding David Finlay, who teamed up with Kidd and Connors to lay them out. Shortly thereafter, AEW announced that Finlay, Kidd and Connors had all signed with the company and are now collectively known as “The Dogs.”

First of all, the name: It’s bad. I’m probably revealing my age a bit to say that the first thing it makes me think of is Al Greene going around WCW in its dying days acting like an actual dog, and that’s an association to which no one should aspire. I presume they couldn’t use “War Dogs” because it’s NJPW’s IP – you’ll notice that they don’t use “Bullet Club Gold” for Jay White’s faction anymore, either – but you need an adjective in there. They need to think of something, and fast.

Anyway, little of this was unexpected. Connors was widely believed to be headed to AEW because his partner, Thekla, signed there last year (and is now AEW Women’s World Champion). Also, Kidd has been a semi-regular in AEW since May of last year as a member of Jon Moxley’s Death Riders faction, despite raging against the promotion in the lead-up to his amazing match against Kenny Omega at Wrestle Dynasty in January 2025.

Finlay, meanwhile, was known to be tired of the travel to and from Japan, since he lives in Florida (like most of the wrestling industry), and was looking to move to a North American promotion; however, his presumed destination was WWE, where his brother and father work. As I mentioned last week in the New Beginning USA post, WWE only wanted him for their NXT developmental brand, and Finlay understood that that was likely to be a bad career move for a veteran who isn’t already well-known to WWE’s fan base – no matter how many smirking photos Ricky Starks, Ethan Page and Brian Pillman Jr. take with Cody Rhodes, deep down they have to know that they’re going nowhere. And while it was mentioned in that post that AEW didn’t seem to have a great deal of interest, Tony Khan clearly understands that David Finlay is a very talented wrestler who any promotion would be lucky to have, so he apparently made him an offer, and Finlay accepted it. According to Sean Ross Sapp’s reporting around the situation, the deal came together in the past week.

Now, from an NJPW perspective, this is not great, although, again, it was not unexpected. The union of the War Dogs and the Unaffiliated into what’s now Unbound Co. was almost certainly undertaken with this eventuality in mind. At this point, NJPW can’t really offer wrestlers deals that stack up financially to those that WWE and AEW can offer. Of course, the interest those promotions have in Japanese wrestlers is going to be limited, but wrestlers from the U.S. and U.K. who have made their names in NJPW are, almost assuredly, going to be curious about a deal with one of those promotions, since they can offer more money thanks to their lucrative TV rights deals, and because said wrestlers can significantly improve their quality of life by reducing the amount of time they spend away from home, particularly if there are family considerations.

Of course, there is a chance that Kidd and/or Connors could have signed a split deal with NJPW (Sapp has reported that Finlay is done with NJPW), but even if that’s the case, it’s almost certain that they will be spending the majority of their time in AEW. There are only two wrestlers we know of who are on split NJPW/AEW contracts – one is Kevin Knight, who hasn’t appeared in NJPW since June 1, 2025, and Konosuke Takeshita, whose lack of availability for tours when he held the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship last year got the more provincial NJPW fans all riled up. (I believe Moxley and Mercedes Mone also have some sort of contractual tie to NJPW, although Mone hasn’t appeared at an NJPW show since Resurgence on May 9, 2025, and Moxley hasn’t appeared at an NJPW show since Dominion on June 9, 2024.)  For what it’s worth, the profiles for Finlay, Connors and Kidd are still on NJPW’s website, and NJPW is pretty attentive to that section – EVIL’s profile was gone the day his contract expired, and Hiromu Takahashi’s was down within a week. However, I don’t think that necessarily means anything at this point.

So, yeah, they’re all most likely gone from NJPW. I’m not exactly bummed out about it, because it makes sense on many levels – and I am an AEW enjoyer, for whatever that’s worth – but it does make me a bit wistful about the past, because this is effectively the end of the L.A. Dojo era of NJPW. The dojo itself closed in 2023, and of the graduates, Kidd, Connors and Kevin Knight are all (at least primarily) in AEW; Alex Coughlan is retired; The DKC is a trainer at the NJPW Academy in L.A. and really only works at the Academy showcases; and Karl Fredericks is supposedly still an active wrestler, although he hasn’t worked a match in almost four months. Even the L.A. Dojo’s head coach, Katsuyori Shibata, is in AEW. I suppose that if you’re feeling generous, you could count Ren Narita and Yuya Uemura as L.A. Dojo alums, since they both did their excursions there, but aside from that, the L.A. Dojo’s time has officially passed in NJPW.

I’d also be lying if I said I don’t think back to the Kidd/Omega match, especially the iconic image of Hiroshi Tanahashi in tears after Kidd gave his all on behalf of NJPW only to come up just short, and wonder what more could have been done with him. I like Kidd, and his story is one that I find very moving, but he’s shown himself to be a somewhat limited performer as he was pushed up the card in the wake of that match. However, it’s sad to see a guy who seemed to be such a true believer a year ago just… gone. Hopefully, everything works out for all involved.