Kula Shaker
The band are known for their interest in traditional Indian music, culture, and mysticism, with a number of their most famous songs, including "Tattva" and "Govinda", featuring lyrics written in Sanskrit. The name Kula Shaker was itself inspired by King Kulasekhara, an Indian emperor from the 8th century. In addition, many of the band's songs feature traditional Indian instruments, such as the sitar, tamboura, and tabla, juxtaposed with guitar-heavy, Western rock instrumentation. Despite achieving commercial success, Kula Shaker were unpopular with many critics, with "The Observer"'s Simon Price describing them in 2014 as a "joke band".
Global Wars (2014)
Also on April 23, it was announced that Alex Shelley, who had worked regularly for ROH between 2004 and 2006, would return to the promotion at Global Wars, where he will team with his NJPW tag team partner Kushida as the Time Splitters. Later that same day, ROH announced that the Time Splitters would be challenging for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in a three-way match, which also includes The Young Bucks and Forever Hooligans, who would first face off in a title match at NJPW's Wrestling Dontaku 2014 on May 3. The three teams have a storied history with each other in NJPW. Time Splitters' only previous reign as the champions started on November 11, 2012, at Power Struggle (2012), where they defeated Forever Hooligans. They held the title for six months before losing it back to Forever Hooligans on March 3, 2013, at Wrestling Dontaku 2013. The Young Bucks debuted with NJPW in late October 2013 and captured the title from Suzuki-gun (Taichi and Taka Michinoku) only weeks later at Power Struggle (2013). On January 4, 2014, at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, The Young Bucks successfully defended the title in a four-way match with Forever Hooligans, Time Splitters and Suzuki-gun and followed that up with a successful title defense against Time Splitters on February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka. The Young Bucks retained the title at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, moving on to Global Wars as the defending champions.
The NJPW side of card was completed on April 23 with the addition of two tag team matches featuring some of the promotion's biggest stars. In the first Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jyushin Thunder Liger face Chaos' Jado and Shinsuke Nakamura. For the past months, Tanahashi and Nakamura had feuding for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, main eventing three of NJPW's first four big shows of the year. At Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, Tanahashi captured the title from Nakamura and successfully defended it against him in a rematch at The New Beginning in Hiroshima, before losing it back to him at Invasion Attack 2014. The other tag team match featured Bullet Club's A.J. Styles and Karl Anderson taking on Chaos' Gedo and Kazuchika Okada. After signing with NJPW, Styles made his debut as the newest member of Bullet Club at Invasion Attack 2014 on April 6, attacking Okada and setting himself up as the next challenger for his IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Styles, adopting the villainous persona associated with the Bullet Club stable, referred to Okada as a "young boy" (rookie), remembering a time, when the two worked together for the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion. On May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, Styles defeated Okada to become the new IWGP Heavyweight Champion. At Global Wars Styles was set to team with Bullet Club founding member and then-leader Karl Anderson, who was also one half of the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, while Okada was set to team with Gedo who, while also an active wrestler, had been positioned as his manager and mouthpiece since his return from TNA in January 2012.