Fellow NJPW wrestlers Jeff Cobb and Aaron Henare would join, as well as freelancers T. J. Perkins and Francesco Akira, and the team of Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis known as Aussie Open, and "Lord" Gideon Grey from RevPro.
Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis from Australia, T. J. Perkins from Philippines, Jeff Cobb and Jakob Austin Young from the United States, Will Ospreay, Gideon Grey, Callum Newman, Dan Moloney and Bea Priestley from England, Aaron Henare from New Zealand, Great-O-Khan from Japan, Templario from Mexico, and finally Francesco Akira from Italy.
Tomoyuki Oka (now known as Great O-Khan) then made his surprise return from excursion and entered the ring behind the referee's back, attacking Okada with an iron claw slam, which allowed Ospreay to hit his Storm Breaker finisher, earning him the pinfall victory.
Later, in a backstage interview, Ospreay announced that he would officially leave Chaos to start a new faction with him, Priestley, and O-Khan called The Empire.
[7] At Wrestle Kingdom 15, O-Khan, Cobb, and Ospreay lost their matches to Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shingo Takagi (for the NEVER Openweight Championship), and Kazuchika Okada, respectively.
[10] After attempting to defend his tag partner from the Empire's attack, Kojima was scheduled to face Ospreay one-on-one at The New Beginning in Nagoya on January 30.
[22] In September at the Revolution Pro Wrestling High Stakes event, Ospreay recruited Aussie Open (Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher) to the group.
[23] The following month during NJPW Strong's Autumn Attack, T. J. Perkins betrayed the LA Dojo and joined United Empire as their first Junior Heavyweight member.
United Empire would take part in the New Japan Cup, where Ospreay, O-Khan, Cobb and Aaron Henare would proceed to the second round with wins over Bushi, Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe and Yuto Nakanishima, respectively.
Ospreay and Cobb would qualify for the quarter finals with wins over Yoshi-Hashi and Sanada, respectively while O-Khan would lose to Zack Sabre Jr.
After the New Japan Cup, Ospreay would start scouting the Junior Heavyweight division and at Hyper Battle he would recruit Francesco Akira as the newest member.
[25] The stable returned two weeks later, on the June 8th episode of Dynamite, this time with Ospreay, Henare, Fletcher and Davis making their AEW debuts, attacking Trent Beretta and FTR.
[32] In the finals at Strong: High Alert, Davis and Fletcher defeated Christopher Daniels and Yuya Uemura to become the inaugural champions.
Following Catch 2/2's claim of their second IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship on June 4 at Dominion 6.4 in Osaka-jo Hall, the duo was confronted by Bullet Club's Clark Connors.
[41] On April 22 however, after defeating Just 5 Guys in a gauntlet match, the remaining members fully accepted TJP as the new leader of United Empire.