On December 11, 2015, NJPW announced that at
Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome on January 4, 2016, the
Bullet Club trio of
Bad Luck Fale,
Tama Tonga and
Yujiro Takahashi would take on
Toru Yano and two mystery partners. Eight days later, Yano revealed his partners as the
Ring of Honor (ROH) tag team
The Briscoe Brothers (
Jay Briscoe and
Mark Briscoe). On December 21, NJPW added that the match would be for the newly created NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship, the promotion's first six-man title. The title's name carried the acronym NEVER, which stood for "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal", and "Radical" and was a
NJPW-promoted series of events that ran from 2010 to 2012 and featured younger up-and-coming talent and outside wrestlers not signed to the promotion. This is the second title to carry the NEVER name, after the
NEVER Openweight Championship, which was introduced in November 2012. and
Ricochet upon winning the title in September 2016 On January 4, 2016, Toru Yano and The Briscoe Brothers defeated Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga and Yujiro Takahashi to become the inaugural champions. After losing the title to Fale, Tonga and Takahashi on February 11 at
The New Beginning in Osaka, Yano and The Briscoe Brothers also became the first two-time winners of the title, when they regained it three days later at
The New Beginning in Niigata. Later that month, the title was defended outside Japan for the first time, when new champions
Kenny Omega and
The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) successfully defended it against
A. C. H.,
Kushida and
Matt Sydal at ROH's
14th Anniversary Show in
Las Vegas, Nevada. On September 25, 2016, the title was
vacated for the first time due to one of the champions, Matt Sydal, failing to make it to a scheduled championship defense because of "travel issues". NJPW crowned new champions that same day. On January 4, 2017, at
Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, the
Los Ingobernables de Japón (L.I.J.) trio of
Bushi,
Evil and
Sanada won a four-team
gauntlet match to capture the title for the first time. They then began exchanging the title with members of the
Taguchi Japan stable, resulting in them becoming record three-time champions on May 3 at
Wrestling Dontaku 2017. The quick title changes resulted in the title earning a reputation as a "hot potato", with Japanese media nicknaming it the . During its first 20 months of existence, the title changed hands 12 times, with no championship team successfully defending it more than two times until L.I.J.'s record-breaking third title reign. The title was also slotted on the
undercards of NJPW events and some championship matches took place as early as the second match on a seven-match show with no other title matches. Bushi publicly criticized NJPW's handling of the title, claiming that the booking was costing the title credibility. ==Reigns==