Greetings.
Today's question comes from a man who didn't include his name, but his email has the word "horse" in it, so we'll call him Mr. Ed.
Today's question comes from a man who didn't include his name, but his email has the word "horse" in it, so we'll call him Mr. Ed.
Caliber, my good man, when is the WWE going to do the obvious and form the stable that has been staring them in the faces for years now. I am, of course, referring to the stable the would be known as the United Kingdom. You have Sheamus representing Ireland, Wade Barrett representing England, Drew McIntyre representing Scotland and Mason Ryan representing Wales. This thing practically writes itself and it's not like any of these guys are doing anything all that noteworthy at the moment anyway. Trust me, this is gold, Jerry. Gold.Also, what is the best WWE stable of all time?
I think it'd rock if Regal was their mouth piece. Honestly though, the WWE at this point just doesn't give a shit about stables. I mean, the last big stable they had was the Nexus, and look how quick they went down. Plus, I'd be afraid they'd just go with the simple "we're better than America" ordeal. Unless of course this brought about Ludvig and his talks of our "crumbling buildings".
Greatest WWE stable, ay? You know, compared to WCW/NWA, WWE's stables don't really hold up. I think great stables I go to 4 Horsemen, nWo, and Dangerous Alliance. They all had longevity, had great stories as well as matches. The WWE had some of those, but never really had a stable with them all. However, I'm gonna go with Evolution. Sure, Triple H was at his worst at this point, but he still had a few great matches. Ric of course was all quality, and Batista & Orton just kept getting better & better. It built two superstars that were soon launched into the stratosphere.
I know a lot of people will say DX, but for me, I can't look back and really enjoy them. I find their antics & jokes for 15 year olds. Plus, knowing what pricks they were backstage just sours me on the whole deal.
How say you?
Truth Commission
ReplyDelete/thread
Evolution battling Benoit, Edge, Jericho and Benjamin was a damn good dynamic, and a fun period for RAW in my opinion. In fact, I am fairly certain there was a hot eight-man tag match involving these folks (possibly switching Benjamin for foley), that occurred before Backlash '04.
ReplyDeleteHell yes on Dangerous Alliance. You have the ultimate heel in Rick Rude, the future of the business in Steve Austin, the vicious tag-team specialist veterans in Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton, and the established heel trying to prove he's still got what it takes in Larry Zybszko.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Jericho a heel at the time? I remember him partnering with Evolution a few times, especially after Batista was injured.
ReplyDeleteWWF/E stables tended to be the more traditional ones that were built around a manager and a rotating cast of heels under his watch - especially for Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
ReplyDeleteScrew it I LOVED the Nation (Rock era).
ReplyDeletePlus the evil mouthpiece and the eye candy/valet. Just a great faction.
ReplyDeleteHeenan family! It made jobbers midcarders, and midcarders into main eventers. It gave anyone instant credibility and heat. The only knock I have is that they were always foiled by Hogan and Warrior and never had a World Champion. But still, Heenan family is the best WWF/E stable.
ReplyDeleteAs short lived as it was.... the Hart Foundation was absolutely fantastic, I loved their sense of unity and the fact they were predominantly all awesome wrestlers. Hart Foundation vs Austin in 97' deserves a lot of credit of continuing Stone Cold's hot streak .
ReplyDeleteThis question of the day is cribbed from WWE 12' video game. Aside from the obvious (Horsemen, nWo, DX) I am going to toss The Corporation out there as a fantastic stable. Evolution should also get some mention, it would have been cool if they added new members.
ReplyDeleteI would find it amusing for the UK stable to exist, you have Sheamus repping in the main event, possibly even in WHC, he turns around and all 3 of his teammates are losing to the Usos or something. Training montages ensue.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't work unless it was Finlay instead of Sheamus. Sheamus is from the Republic of Ireland which is NOT part of the UK; Finlay is from Northern Ireland which IS part of it. I should say it wouldn't work with that name--give them a different name and it'd be fine.
ReplyDeleteDangerous Alliance is probably one of my all-time favorite heel stables. They were booked almost perfectly, as well. I'd love to see Heyman's association with Lesnar and Axel used to slowly bring that back.
ReplyDeleteI've met wrestling fans.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's that much of a problem.
Best stable? No question...Dudes with Attitudes
ReplyDeleteso true...so true.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Ludvig dead?
ReplyDeleteOne quick question.... is the proper name for a group of wrestlers teaming with each other a faction or a stable? Because I recall from one of the Legends of Wrestling roundtable shows (pretty sure it was the one on factions with Ric Flair) that the proper name is faction and that a stable is the name for a group of wrestlers that are led by one manager that can have wrestlers break off from or join on a semi-regular basis.
ReplyDeleteyep - suicide.
ReplyDeleteWas he manik? (Sorry couldn't resist)
ReplyDeleteSo did I.
ReplyDeleteThank you for asking this.
ReplyDeleteThat's the right answer I think
ReplyDeleteFor me, the original D-Generation X of HBK, Triple H, Rick Rude and Chyna were the best stable. Shawn was at his best being such a douche bag in his promos, matches, etc. And his interaction with HHH was hilarious. . I still laugh when I see clips of Shawn sticking the Canadian flag up his nose! What a jerk he was back in the day.
ReplyDeleteShit yes. 1997 was such an incredible year, and the heat generated from the Foundation was nuclear (on BOTH sides). One of my all-time favorite periods in wrestling.
ReplyDeleteVince, the Rock thinks you should fire him.
ReplyDeletefacgime!
ReplyDeleteAnd it all culminated in one of the greatest matches of all time in WarGames.
ReplyDeleteAwful...but it made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteToo bad MVP's not here, they should have a Better Than U-topia match IRL.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how any group is in this conversation other than the Horsemen and the nWo, to be honest. In terms of pure money drawn and attention brought to the product, those two are head and shoulders above everything else. The Dangerous Alliance comes close to consideration, since it basically revived business for a short period of time for WCW, but no dice.
ReplyDeleteIf you're concentrating only on WWE, I'd personally say DX. In its original form, you had the top guy in the company and a guy they were grooming (cwutidid) and then obviously the true stable version with the Outlaws and X-Pac saw Triple H take a bigger role in the company, continuing his progression and the stuff they did taking swipes at the Nation and WCW were pretty awesome. Just ignore the last couple of "reunions" (cool as hell Summerslam tank entrance aside).
Yeah, the name for a stable probably comes from horse owners and their stables... might not be the same horses from year to year, but the management never changes.
ReplyDeleteThe Four Horsemen were mainly a faction... although JJ had them slightly leaning into "stable" territory.
Paul Jones' Army in its various creations was a true stable. As was the Bobby Heenan Family.
One of my favorite Rock lines.
ReplyDeleteAre we watching some alternate WWE where The Shield, the Wyatt Family, 3MB, and the Heyman Guys don't exist? I'm pretty sure those are all stables to come about since Nexus.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite stable of all time was The Flock. Even if half of them were terrible, I just dug the gimmick.
Yeah, I think Sheamus represting the Northern Ireland might lead to some problems back home. Quite possibly more leg injuries. Like kneecap or two.
ReplyDeleteShield's a pure faction, as is 3MB.
ReplyDeleteJury's still out on the Wyatt family.
Heyman's Guys are a stable.
(Expanding on the small discussion below.)
Medusa pre-1996: Yummy.
ReplyDeleteNot quite Top 5, but a solid contender.
Can we get away from the idea that just because wrestlers come from the same part of the world they should form a stable. It's as lazy as chucking two guys together as a tag team because their skin happens to be the same colour.
ReplyDeleteThe best stables have some unifying viewpoint that binds them together
Hart Foundation - Family & Canadian Heroes
Nexus - New wrestlers with a chip on their shoulder
D-X - Rulebreakers and boundry pushers
Just because they come from the same neck of the woods doesn't mean they're going to be a good stable
A stable like that would be a good way to get both Adrian Neville and Paige into WWE as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree on DX. Loved them at first, then not as much. Their jokes got old fast. Plus the whole attitude era has not aged well.
ReplyDeleteNot a good idea. The Welsh don't like the English, the Irish don't like the English and the Scottish don't like the English. A Celtic stable might be worth a squirt though.
ReplyDeleteHow can Mr dick joke complain about juvenile humour?
Heenan Family. Any other answer is obviously wrong.
ReplyDeleteReading all the complaints about the Welsh, Irish, and Celts not liking the English, a pure English stable could work well with Regal as manager, Barrett, Neville, Paige, Oliver Gray . . . Also gets Neville, Paige and Gray up to the WWE level.
ReplyDeleteI still want a Scott Steiner managed stable though, especially if the wrestlers in his stable were like high flyers and technicians. Steiner's promos with non-steriody bodied wrestlers could be pure comedy gold.
The Hart Foundation, followed by Evolution. And then the Heenan Family, I guess.
ReplyDeleteDX came off as nWo-lite to me. I thought Nash and Hall pulled off the dick jokes with a lot more subtlety and humor than HHH and Waltman.
ReplyDeleteBut then WWE could go to the Republic of Ireland and we could re-live the Evil Turncoat Sgt. Slaughter storyline!! Sheamus could drink only UK-approved beer and only eat Northern Ireland-grown potatoes. It'll make tens!!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe in 2003 before he returned, and Jericho WAS a heel at that point, but I think the OP was referring to the 2004 era of Raw when Benoit was champion. Those 6-man and 8-man tag matches were pretty much always insane.
ReplyDeleteDX is my WWE answer as well. The Horsemen would be my choice for WCW. The nWo was a bigger moneymaker, but it got extremely bloated extremely quickly and a lot of its time was spent breaking up, re-convening with a different shirt and 1 or 2 different members, breaking up, starting over again, etc.
ReplyDelete"Guiness is good for you? Guiness is good for nuthin'!"
ReplyDeleteSheamus then drinks a warm pint of English ale and is accompanied to the ring by HRH Elizabeth II.
During the match, The Queen is attacked by the ghost of Danno O'Mahony...
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danno_O'Mahony)
....Sheamus then starts singing..."God save our gracious Queen..."
Suddenly, a mysterious spotlight appears and fights off the ghost of Danno O'Mahony. Sheamus celebrates with a glass of Aspel cider.
The tills literally stop ringing.
I was a mark for the original Nation. Faarooq, Crush, Savio, Clarence, and PG-13. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteIs their some qualifier I don't know about? To me there are four stables I can think of right now: 3MB, Heyman's guys, The Shield, The Wyatts. It would seem to me the WWE cares about stables too much. One of the things that drove me away was when everybody had to be in a stable: the Oddities, the Godwins, et al.
ReplyDeleteThe Heenan family was awesome though.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of longevity is maybe a knock against them, but otherwise The Hart Foundation absolutely deserves to be mentioned along with the NWO or the Horsemen.
ReplyDeleteI think DX and Evolution are both close to that level as well.
NOD are definitely not to that level, but were always a huge pleasure of mine as well in all of their incarnations.
The thing about DX is they were almost two different factions...the original HBK DX were legit heels who were a little "heavy handed" in some of the things they did (making fun of Vince and Srg. Slaughter, mocking the curtain call, etc). After Shawn left they went to more towards a "cool" (at least in their eyes) sophomoric humore type of gimmick. They still had a few good moments, the Nation parody stands out, but I prefer the original DX much much more.
ReplyDeleteOriginal > later versions
ReplyDeleteAnother Unamerican faction is not what the sport of professional wrestling needs. However, those names listed, along with Kidd, Jinder, Khali, Gabriel, Kruger, Kofi & Big Zeke (though he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth) could set up a nice Commonwealth or British Empire championship, long a staple of Canadian territories. It could be a belt, though with the way the underbelts are treated nowadays, maybe a one night eight man tourney during a tour would be fine.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a yearly thing like the Kuwaiti Cup.
ReplyDeleteI think for this discussion, nWo is Hogan, Hall and Nash. MAYBE Syxx.
ReplyDeleteI actually preferred the Outlaws.to the headliners in DX. DX started off hot, but the enormity and "reality" of the nWo was far superior to me at the time.
ReplyDeleteOddities. Complete with ICP "rapping" them to the ring.
ReplyDeleteSlightly disagree.
ReplyDeleteJJ was only there because he was Tully's Manager at the time.
he nucleus started when Flair was being touted as an Anderson "cousin" and would have 6 man tags against Magnum Dusty etc.
4H was a faction first and foremost IMO
nWo will always be (for me at least)
ReplyDeleteHogan
Hall
Nash
Giant
Syxx
Dibiase
Piss poorly executed of course, but I wanna say that Legacy had TOO MUCH POTENTIAL TO FUCK UP.
ReplyDeleteWhite-hot Randy Orton coming back from injury and winning the rumble, setting his sights on HHH's title.
Cody Rhodes turning on Hardcore Holly to join up with (then can't miss project, even though I thought he sucked 6 ways til sunday) Ted Dibiase Jr. to anchor the tag division.
Now the fourth choices were always terrible but it with those three as the nulcues of the group they should have had a good run.
But to top it all off: Shane McMahon
Shane comes back piss the fuck off because being the FIRST BORN son of Vince Jr and a fourth generation promoter, he is stepped over for the billion dollar princess.
That takes care of the Mcmahon rivalry part that they love to death, and he has a problem with Vince's surrogate son because he is everything Vince wanted in Shane, but Shane wasn't.
Shane started out as a ref, worked backstage, sat in meetings, being groomed his whole life to become the heir to the WWE throne once Vince passes and he gets it taken from him because of his sister and son in law. So he uses LEgacy as his emissaries to wreak havoc on the company to tear it down. Take the titles and usurp power from Vince/Steph/HHH.
Plus it could have been a good way to establish new talent. All those second gen guys in FCW could have had ready made names coming in and boom done.
Just a colossal waste. Bigger than Nexus, Bigger than any of the latest failures they have done.
Legacy.
Hart Foundation
ReplyDeletebesides, Ireland isn't part of the UK.
ReplyDeletenice avatar
ReplyDeleteDidn't they actually do that stable in some recent WWE video game?
ReplyDeleteJoin the Nintendo Fun Club, Brian!
ReplyDeleteThat's some good booking. Legacy should have been such a big deal and should have been more than just about Orton.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of Shane using them as a revenge group. Always thought that Hennig and Rotundo should have been part of the group too, but I guess they were super green at that point.
Hennan would always bitch at Monsoon for calling them a stable. How a stable is a smelly place for horses and they where a family. The Heenan Family was freakin' huge at one point, too.
ReplyDeleteThe foreigners as anti-American heels is played out. But I wouldn't mind a UK stable that was more about showcasing international talent.
ReplyDeleteI think a successful stable has to make stars of its members and stars of anyone they feud with. DX helped Hunter take the next step to main eventer and turned the NAO from lower midcarders to a major draw. They also helped get Austin over.
ReplyDeleteThis makes sense. The Horsemen were more or less showcased as equals. The Heenan Family we more like goons led by the Brain. Since managers are a thing of the past, there really aren't stables anymore.
ReplyDeleteNumber of WWE fans that would know that?
ReplyDeleteThe intensity of that match is just unreal. Everybody busts ass in that one. Even Steamboat came out like a wrecking machine.
ReplyDeleteSame here. That collection of guys, had they stayed together, would have been awesome.
ReplyDeleteDoes McIntyre still work there?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind seeing Sheamus & Barrett as an ass-kicking APA-style tag team....if there was an actual tag team division for them to dominate.
I can dig it. Were any of the other second-generation guys ever considered for Legacy? Interesting that it stayed just the three guys
ReplyDeleteYeah. I like nWo as a purely former-WWF entity. Giant wasn't necessary, since Nash was plenty big as the enforcer type. When they added guys like Norton, Horace, etc it was dying quickly
ReplyDeleteIt was an awesome year in terms of story and heat, but, man, did they have more than like 5 good matches that year in the WWF?
ReplyDeleteEvolution vs. Benoit/Jericho/Foley/Benjamin in June or July 2004 is still one of the best RAW matches I've seen.
ReplyDeleteThat's the original poster, so I can live with that.
ReplyDeleteA few quid, at that.
ReplyDeleteprobably 4. and they all reside on this blog.
ReplyDelete