wrestling / Columns
The 411 Wrestling Top 5 09.14.11: Week 141 – Worst Stables & Supergroups
Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. Most of our topics will be based on recent events in the Wrestling World, looking at those events that make us think of times past.
So, on to this week’s topic…
SHAWN S. LEALOS
5. THE MACHINES – So, Andre the Giant gets suspended and decides to return under a mask. Of course, this is cheating but, as Hulk Hogan proved and Gorilla Monsoon preached in the ‘80s, it’s ok to cheat if you’re a good guy. Well, “Giant Machine” was joined by Super Machine (Masked Superstar and later Ax of Demolition) but soon the joke grew old. Big Machine (Blackjack Mulligan) came in next and when Hulk Machine, Piper Machine, Animal Machine and Crusher Machine joined in the act, it was just stupid. Thankfully, the stable came to an end when it came time to turn Andre bad.
4. X-FACTOR – After Degeneration X died off, I guess the WWE was looking for something to take its place. So, they brought in two clique members and a guy who was stagnating in the WWE and tried to find lightning in a bottle for the second time. Unfortunately, they chose the least popular member of the clique (X-Pac) and a guy who was barely a member at all (Justin Credible). Plus, until he went to Japan, Albert was crap. What resulted was one of the worst stables ever to grace the WWE.
3. M.I.A. – I would love to blame this ridiculous stable on Booker T’s “G.I. Bro” gimmick but, unfortunately, he used it early in his career and this was just a rehash of his WWA days. Well, the only good thing that came out of this entire group was Major Gunn’s porno. He get Hugh Morrus, repackaged as General Hugh G. Rection, Private Stash (get it?), Lieutenant Loco (Chavo Jr.), Sgt. AWOL (the late Wall), Cpl. Cajun (Lash LeRoux) and the aforementioned Major Gunns. They feuded with the Filthy Animals, Team Canada and the Natural Born Thrillers. There were a lot of forgettable factions in WCW at the time and M.I.A. was the biggest waste.
2. ODDITIES – The Oddities were started by Don “Cyrus the Virus” Callis when he was in the WWE and known as The Jackyl. Basically, it started out when he managed a horrible stable known as The Truth Commission. That stable ended when the Jackyl ordered one of the members (Kurrgan) to attack two of the others (Recon and Sniper). He then formed The Oddities which was even worse than the Truth Commission. Kurrgan (a less talented version of Kahli) joined forces with Giant Silva (a less talented version of Kurrgan) and Golga (a less talented Earthquake) and became a joke. Add in two members of The Howard Stern Show (Hank the Angry Dwarf and Crackhead Bob) and the Insane Clown Posse and you have one of the worst abominations in the WWE’s history.
1. THE DUNGEON OF DOOM – In the “Best Stables” Top 5, I mentioned Devastation Inc. as a stable that was great because of the monsters in it. Now, I give you a stable that used the same idea and failed miserably. First of all, the setup for the group was Kevin Sullivan going into a cave and finding a mysterious being who gave him a stable of monsters. However, outside of The Giant (Big Show) and Kamala, they sucked. Brutus Beefcake was Zodiac and John Tenta was The Shark. Sullivan also brought in Meng, One Man Gang, Hugh Morrus, The Barbarian and Big Bubba. They also used a mummy, a leprechaun and a Yeti. Now, why are they the worst? In the day when the NWA/WCW was the wrestling alternative to the WWF’s cartoony storylines, The Dungeon of Doom pushed WCW into that territory. And they were always in the main events. Thank God, the nWo came along and pushed them out of the picture.
Scott Rutherford
HM – The Union: Why? I mean that in the “why did they ever exist” way not in a rhetorical “this is the reason” way.
HM – The Flock: As always, good idea to start off but essentially became a home for guys WCW had no idea what to do with.
HM – L.W.O: I’m not going to make charges of un-subtle stereotyping but if the shoe fits…
5. Legacy – The whole idea of creating a faction is to elevate those in the group by associating with the bigger stars in that group. Case in point: Evolution. Randy Orton and Dave Batista came out of that association as world champions and main eventers. Tell me how did Legacy benefit Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase? You could argue Ted went backwards out of this. Cody is doing okay but nothing great. The potential for Legacy to tear a hole through the WWE and create something special was enormous and ability to organically change members in ad out and was also unique. In the end it primarily served to put Randy Orton over even though he was already a huge star.
4. nWo Wolfpac – To follow the chart on the wall…members of the original nWo break off and form an “elite” faction due to the over-saturation of questionable talent in the original outfit. Both groups fight but then we find out they are in bed together anyway and the Wolfpac become a group within a group. Talk about your wrestling cast system. If they only just spun off the Wolfpac and never labeled it nWo and never rejoined it to its source…things would have been fine. Instead we got an nWo that was even MORE diluted.
3. X-Factor – I like Sean Waltman. I think he is a very under-appreciated talent that happened to be easily led. My opinion, but facts would seem to back me up. At some point the general wrestling audience at large got sick of him and his stagnate character and as you all know by now, we have the term “X-Pac heat” to deal with. THEN they decided to form a stable around a guy with tremendous go-away heat and who do they team him with? Friggin’ Albert and Justin Credible. This was doomed to fail and it’s a pity, cause I like Sean Waltman.
2. M.I.A – Vince Russo is an idiot. I mentioned about the L.W.O earlier and this is just as bad. It’s fine you want to repackage guys, especially cats that are floundering but when the extent of the re-imagining is basically looking at the ethnicity and giving it a military based or sexual pun name…it makes you look like an idiot. I mean, how can you look at Booker T. and think he needed a gimmick change, let aloe the G.I Bro fiasco? I don’t care if it was a rehash from his old days as an indy wrestler, it is so bush league. But that is Russo…bush league.
1.The Corporate Ministry – This was just stupid. The Ministry buy itself, fine. The Corporation by itself, fine. The two entities merged as one…urgh. Mind you, the ministry jumped the shark when The Brood was added for no real good reason, so shit was getting retarded anyway. Let me list the ENTIRE CorpMin roster…
Vince McMahon
Shane McMahon
The Undertaker
Paul Bearer
Triple H.
Bradshaw
Farooq
Mideon
Viscera
Joey Abs
Pete Gas
Rodney
Chyna
The Big Bossman
Gerry Brisco
Pat Patterson
…that’s 15 members! Holy fuck! Never mind that Edge, Christian, Gangrel, Ken Shamrock, Test and The Big Show were all in the mix around that time as well. In no way was this a good idea and making Vince the Higher Power was just silly. Most people assumed it was going to be Jake Roberts, which would have worked better, both in name and in practice. To many people, too many egos, too many jobbers, too many man-ish looking woman that take it up the trumpet, too many man boobs and not enough common sense. Excuse me while I go watch some Windham-era Four Horseman to remind me how it’s done.
Wes Kirk
HM – The J.O.B Squad: Losing gimmicks never work!
HM – First Family: This was a Hart stable around for ONE WEEK.
HM – Mean Street Posse: Mostly a comedy group, otherwise it’d be #1 or #2.
5. Alliance To End Hulkamania – This was the so-called “supergroup” in which the Dungeon of Doom collaborated with the Four Horsemen and brought in Ultimate Solution and Z-Gangsta for a night for an eight-on-two Doomsday cage match. Basically, it was a group designed for one single match and of course, Hogan and Savage beat all eight men! Also, the match won Worst Match of the Year in 1996 and it isn’t hard to see why when the secret weapons of the bad guys were Bane from Batman and Zeus from No Holds Barred and the faces secret weapon was Brutus Beefcake and a pair of frying pans! UGH.
4. The Union – This was the time when the Higher Power was revealed and Test, Mick Foley, Big Show, and Ken Shamrock all headed out to form their own group. Vince was part of the group before the grand reveal, but when it was shown Vince was behind the Corporate Ministry the Union wanted revenge. Shamrock wanted a Lion’s Den match, and lost it. Test wanted Stephanie on a date, and ended up losing her to the guy who drugged and married her against her will. Foley ended up needing time off after a knee injury, and Show basically moved on to team with the Undertaker for a short time. The official name of the group was UPYOURS, or Union of People You Oughtta Respect, Son and they carried 2 x 4 boards like Duggan. Any more reasons to include them needed? No? Good.
3. Evolution – They should just have named this “People Who Keep HHH Champion” since that was basically what it was. HHH decided Flair kissing his ass wasn’t enough so he brought Batista and Randy Orton, at the time two new talents, into his group. After Evolution debuted, Batista and Orton both got hurt on the same house show and were out for months. On their return, Orton became IC Champion and then lost it before becoming World champion and then ejected from the group the next night on RAW and beaten for the gold by HHH, nearly destroying his future with a horrid face run. Batista and Rica Flair had two worthless tag title runs, and Batista ended up overhearing HHH/Flair talk about him and quit to challenge HHH for the title. Great faction there, right?
2. X-Factor – This was just sheer stupidity. X-Pac decided he didn’t want to be in the shadow of DX or the nWo so he’d form his own supergroup and who did he recruit? Prince Albert the tattoo artist and Justin Credible, jobber to the stars! The group basically existed for all of a few months before tanking predictably and in the end, nothing of value was accomplished by the group or lost by its dissolution.
1. Dungeon Of Doom – Oh dear God, those of us growing up and watching the Dodd have such fond memories of the stupidest segments perhaps in wrestling history. This was the same group that had gimmicks such as a gigantic man-fish, a seven-foot Yeti/mummy thing, an insane laughing fat guy, a devil worshipper, and pretty much everything else you could name. Most of these guys never even won a single title in the Dodd and lost most of their matches! Quite possibly the least effective and useless faction ever.
Ryan Byers
5. Legacy – Randy Orton was once a part of Evolution, a group that legitimately turned him into a main event star. It seemed that Legacy was an attempt to do the same for Cody Rhodes and Ted Debase, Jr. However, if that was the goal, the creative team did absolutely everything wrong in terms of accomplishing it. Rhodes and Debase were never portrayed as up-and-comers when they were with the stable. They were portrayed as guys who ran interference for Orton and constantly did jobs to his adversaries. There was a ridiculous amount of in-fighting with the group and these weird tangential storylines where weeks at a time were wasted deciding whether Manu and Deuce (Or was it Domino?) were members of the faction when the time could’ve been dedicated to getting Rhodes and Debase over. There were a couple of hot angles involving Debase standing up to Orton, but, at the end of the day, the younger members of the group were made into such horrific jobbers that there was no heat whatsoever when the split actually occurred. This did nobody any favors and completely derailed DBASE’s career when it originally looked like he had a lot of promise.
4. Special K – It’s not often that you’ll see something from Ring of Honor on an internet wrestling writer’s “worst of” list. Special K is a rare exception. For those of you who didn’t watch ROH at the time, let me fill you in. The company decided that it would create a heel stable of “rivers,” spoiled rich kids who blew their parents’ money on big parties and drugs. Oh, and, for some reason, Joey Mercury and Mike Whip wreck were also members. Speaking of members, Special K had about 2,000 of them. I’m only slightly exaggerating. It seemed like there was a new guy on every other show, and, on the shows where new members weren’t appearing, old ones were vanishing with no explanation. It didn’t help that it was apparently a prerequisite for membership that you had to look like you were 14 years old and in now way built like a professional wrestler. And their matches . . . oh, dear god, THEIR MATCHES. I hate to use the term “spot monkey,” but watching these guys perform was cringe inducing for anybody who likes their wrestling to look anything like a halfway realistic fight. There would be a flip, and then everybody would stand around staring at each other until they got into position to do the next flip. It was every negative stereotype of indy wrestling ever, all in one stable.
3. PMS – I complained about Legacy earlier because it was supposed to get two guys over and failed miserably at doing so. However, when it comes to PMS, my problem is that I can’t figure out who the hell it was supposed to get over. It was a stable of three women, two of whom couldn’t wrestle worth a damn, and one poor guy so green that he could barely get any further than Sunday Night Heat. I mean, really, how was a feud with PMS supposed to work? A baby face wrestler gets pissed off at them and then does . . . what, exactly? Punks out their jobber boyfriend in five minutes? Has a ten-minute match on pay per view against Ms. Jacqueline? Really awkwardly beats up Ryan Shamrock? This was just one of those weird Vince Russo ideas that he did so he could make a bunch of sex jokes, even though it in no way fits in with what professional wrestling is supposed to be.
2. The No Limit Soldiers – Hootie hoo. This is one of the greatest examples of poor marketing in pro wrestling history. Rapper Master P and his hip-hop posse were brought in for a ridiculous sum of money to be a major part of a wrestling show with a largely southern, largely redneck fanbase. In addition to not getting over, the group’s presence subjected us to ridiculous segments like thirty minute long birthday parties for P’s nephew and Curt Henning cutting promos on Nitro house DJ Ran. The talent lineup for the group was also pretty perplexing. Rey Misterio, Jr. and Konnan were associated with it for a while, which was fine given that they’re both talented performers. However, they were joined by Master P’s personal bodyguard “Swoll,” who was a big stiff with no training, a man with freakish arms called “4×4,” who was somehow an even bigger stiff with even less training, Chase Tatum, a who had to have been at the bottom of his Power Plant class, and BRAD ARMSTRONG, who stuck out like a sore thumb. Simply put, nothing good came of this.
1. The WCW/ECW Alliance – Don’t get me wrong, some of the best wrestlers in history and some of the biggest stars in wrestling history were a part of this stable. However, the reason that it tops the list is that it’s the biggest example of wasted potential in professional wrestling history. I almost feel like I shouldn’t say too much because this has been written about time and time again over the years and I don’t want to belabor the point, but it is mind-boggling that something as seemingly easy as a WCW vs. WWF feud could be booked with the result being that the hosting company’s business actually went significantly DOWN and not up. That’s far worse than any Dungeon of Doom, Misfits in Action, or X-Factor, because it killed a large part of the wrestling business’ popularity and threw a lot of seemingly easy money out the window.
Michael Weyer
HM–The No Limit Soldiers. Sure, let’s blow a few million on a rap star with no wrestling experience and his idiot cronies.
HM—The Oddities. Originally a jackboot group, they turned into a freak show, funny but never anything threatening.
HM—Million Dollar Corporation. For a guy supposedly so rich, you’d think Ted DiBiase could do better than Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow, Nikolai Volkoff and King Kong Bundy.
5. Straight Edge Society: This one is painful because it had some great potential. CM Punk going on a trip of wanting to “save” people and forming his own cult, how can you blow that? Well, making his first member Luke Gallows helped and the shaving of Serena didn’t go over as well as hoped for. What made it worse was that they just stopped there, no more recruiting, just these three with Punk the one always in the ring and on the mic. It was all summed up when Punk warned HHH of the wrath of the Society and HHH replied “you mean both of them?” Getting rid of Serena and Gallows after all that was even more insulting, a good idea never given a real chance to get off the ground.
4. The Spirit Squad: Male cheerleaders. Male cheerleaders. Vince McMahon spent much of 2006 pitting DX in a feud with MALE CHEERLEADERS. I don’t care who’s backing them, you do not expect fans to get behind something so goofy as an actual threat, making this even more a waste of time than usual for WWE.
3. M.I.A.: When people mention their hate of Vince Russo in WCW, this usually pops up. First he takes Booker T, nicely over by this point and saddles him with the stupid G.I. Bro gimmick. He’s then put in with a bunch of oddballs like Major Stash (he was going to be Private Stash but actually argued about being just a private and so was promoted, I swear I’m not making that up), Major Gunns (because of her breasts in tight shirts, gotta love the Russo subtle wit), Lieutenant Loco (Chavo Guerrero, so named as he was Latino), Sgt. AWOL and their leader Hugh G. Rection (say it out loud). Despite feuds with various others and a heel turn, they were just one big joke that fans never found funny.
2. Dudes with Attitudes: Face stables just don’t work as faces are supposed to be standing on their own rather than ganging up. The idea of guys doing that against the Four Horsemen did make sense but in 1990, with Ole Anderson booking and cost-cutting running rampant, it didn’t exactly shine. Sting and the Steiners were one thing but having Junkyard Dog, Paul Orndorff and El Gigante didn’t exactly sell them as something to win the young fans over. They even had cards printed up but aside from watching Sting’s back at Great American Bash, they didn’t do too much to be any real force before quietly disbanded.
1. The Dungeon of Doom: I did an entire Spotlight on how horrible the Dungeon was, a mix of freaks like Kamala, Loch Ness and guys like Zodiac and the Shark, good workers saddled with ugly new personas. We had ridiculous vignettes with Kevin Sullivan and his “father” in a cave recruiting these guys and doing more evil laughing than actual in-ring stuff. Sure, the Giant gave them actual heat with his attacks on Hogan but they flushed that goodwill down the toilet with a seven-foot tall Mummy they called the Yeti. Just a huge waste of money and talent, a sad statement of WCW at the time.
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