10 Wrestling Stables Lost To History

9. Full Blooded Italians

This stable originated in ECW, where the original joke was that almost nobody in the group was actually Italian, but they acted like old Italian stereotypes anyway. So when WWE purchased all of ECW’s trademarks out of bankruptcy, and happened to have one of the original members on the roster, they decided to revive the FBI. Except they forgot the part where you’re supposed to wink at the audience and acknowledge that they’re not actually Italian, so the new FBI was literally just a stable of evil Italian stereotypes. Also, they were losers and quickly broke up due to the annual WWE Draft sending them to different brands. But WWE wasn’t done with the FBI quite yet, as an attempted rival of the entire ECW brand as a television show on the soon-to-be-renamed Sci Fi Channel gave the group one more chance at a comeback, again with a new roster of allegedly amusing caricatures. Unfortunately, the ECW TV show tanked, most of the original ECW concepts were quickly scrubbed from the show, and the FBI scattered to the four winds, never to be seen again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeiBJl7qvb8 Source: Youtube.com

8. Los Boricuas

Ah, the WWE “Gang Warz” of the Attitude Era. When the original Nation of Domination disbanded, its former members created three new stables in the aftermath, resulting in a bunch of matches between the groups, none of which were any good, and all of which involved a questionable amount of racism. There was the “badder, blacker” Nation, the redneck biker gang Disciples of Apocalypse, and the Puerto Rican faction Los Boricuas. And while many members of the other two groups would at least have memorable futures with WWE (that Rocky guy proved to be pretty popular, eventually), the Savio Vega-led Boricuas were undeniably losers, to the point that it’s unlikely you could find anyone who could name all four members of the group. Even Vega, the leader, didn’t have much of a career once the faction broke up, with his career highlight probably consisting of being part of the main event of No Way Out of Texas just before WrestleMania 14, as an emergency mystery partner for D-Generation X against Stone Cold Steve Austin, due to Shawn Michaels suffering a serious back injury.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savio_Vega Source: Wikipedia.org

7. The Oddities

While not founded from the ashes of the Nation of Domination, a fourth faction was established and took part in WWE’s “Gang Warz”, only to evolve into something crazier. Originally formed as a parody of South African military police, The Truth Commission was a three-man team led by their manager Jackyl, which mostly served as a vehicle for the debuting Kurrgan, a gigantic man with an impressive physique who had almost no wrestling ability. At some point, the Truth Commission gimmick was dropped in favour of an entirely new stable, The Oddities, featuring a variety of oddly shaped humans (including the wrestler formerly known as Earthquake under a misshapen leather mask) that was originally portrayed as some sort of evil freak show. Then, when Jackyl left WWE, the entire group somehow became good guys, coming to the ring alongside the Insane Clown Posse, decked out in tie-dyed t-shirts and South Park memorabilia, and unofficially adopting incredibly popular Diva Sable as their best friend. And then, at some point, they vanished, probably because they were absolutely terrible wrestlers. Kurrgan’s post-WWE career was notable, however, as he found work playing really big henchmen in movies like Sherlock Holmes.

http://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/The_Oddities Source: prowrestling.wikia.com

6. The NWA

For those who don’t know, the NWA, or National Wrestling Alliance, is the longest-running wrestling organization in the world, dating back to the 1940’s, which oversaw all the wrestling territories and kept everyone working together. But by the mid-90’s, with WWE, WCW, and ECW having broken away from the NWA over the years and left the territory system in shambles, the NWA was a shadow of its former glory. In an effort to promote themselves on a larger scale, the heads of the NWA cut a deal with WWE to have their champions appear on Raw.  It also served to help WWE add depth to a roster that was losing talent to WCW on a seemingly regular basis. However, the NWA faction failed to connect with WWE fans, likely due to featuring wrestlers such as an increasingly unmotivated Barry Windham, the aging Rock ‘N’ Roll Express, and the decently talented but decidedly uncharismatic Dan Severn. Oh, and Jeff Jarrett, long before he realized hitting people with a guitar was the key to success. In a last-ditch effort to make the faction worthwhile, WWE attempted to remake perennial losers Bob Holly and Bart Gunn into the “New Midnight Express”, but unsurprisingly, that wasn’t the answer, and the stable quickly dissolved.

http://www.thewrestlinginsomniac.com/2015/04/the-1998-nwa-invasion-of-wwe.html Source: thewrestlinginsomniac.com

5. Kai En Tai

In their continuing search to find more talent to fill the gaps left by departing wresters, WWE even looked to Japan for new talent, finding it in the form of Taka Michinoku and the heel group Kai En Tai. Originally, Taka, who had been brought in as part of WWE’s attempt to create a Light Heavyweight division to rival WCW’s cruiserweights, was an adversary of Kai En Tai, but he joined the group as part of a revenge plot against porn star Val Venis, who had slept with a women who was the wife of Kai En Tai’s manager, but who also turned out to be Taka’s sister. Yes, this was during the Attitude Era, why do you ask? Anyway. from there, the stable largely fell apart as members went back to Japan, leaving only Taka and Funaki, who began wrestling largely as a comedy team. They became fairly popular doing a gimmick where their promos would be shown as purposefully bad overdubbing, punctuated by Funaki “speaking” his only line, “INDEED!” at the very end. Eventually, Taka also returned to Japan, and Funaki became the self-professed “Smackdown #1 Announcer” during the brand split, even winning the WWE Cruiserweight title once, before finally making his own return to the Land of the Rising Sun in 2010.

http://www.wwe.fr/photos/2015/08/15/international-superstar-and-diva-flag-photos;jsessionid=EBB0CAC82DD262390C7E6373531831F2?r30_r1_r1:page=10 Source: www.wwe.fr

4. The Mean Street Posse

Yes, from the mean streets of Greenwich, Connecticut, it’s literally two of Shane McMahon’s childhood friends and a third guy who was supposed to do the actual wrestling. Brought in as part of Test’s feud with Shane over his sister Stephanie (part of the “winning the family’s approval” mentioned earlier), they played entitled snobs to the hilt, and somehow managed to get over to the point that they began training to become real wrestlers and stuck around on WWE syndicated programming for years afterwards.  They were even briefly won the Hardcore title a few times, although many people could lay claim to that honor. Sadly, with Shane’s departure from pro wrestling and WWE, it doesn’t look like a Posse reunion is ever going to be in the cards.

http://pl.wwe.com/photos/2015/07/16/the-minions-of-sports-entertainment-photos Source: pl.wwe.com

3. Latino World Order

Once the New World Order took off, WCW was quick to exploit the marketability of the gimmick as much as possible. That’s why we got the Wolfpack, nWo Japan, nWo 2000, and several other variations of the original group. Also, the lWo, which had nothing to do with any of that, and was just an attempt to completely transplant the entire concept of a group of wrestlers in a dominant faction into the Cruiserweight Division, which was largely kept separate from the rest of WCW storylines due to everyone in it being much smaller. That’s not a joke. At any rate, Eddie Guerrero formed a group consisting of most of WCW’s Mexican wrestlers (which was actually a fairly large number at the time) and attempted to rule the division with an iron fist, similar to how the real nWo operated. Their major success was forcing Rey Mysterio to join the group against his will, but a serious injury to Eddie Guerrero ended the group for good, as they were attacked on television by the original nWo and forced to stop copying them.

http://www.snipview.com/q/American_professional_wrestlers_of_Mexican_descent Source: www.snipview.com

2. The J.O.B. Squad

In wrestling, not everyone gets to be World Champion. In fact, some wrestlers make a decent and lengthy career out of losing, from “Iron” Mike Sharpe and Barry Horowitz to current wrestlers like Heath Slater. Rarely, however, do they form a stable in some strange combination of protest and celebration of their status.  Enter the J.O.B. Squad, a group of low-level wrestlers led by Al Snow, whose slogan was “Pin Me, Pay Me” and who seemed to revel in being the ultimate underdogs, only without even the slim chance that they would come out on top. Initially, they found some success, as they combined forces to enable perennial loser Duane Gill to win the WWE Light Heavyweight title (which led to the creation of “Gillberg”, a blatant Goldberg parody who never won a match but somehow remained champion for over a year), and Al Snow became a mainstay of the Hardcore title picture. However, as often happened in the Attitude Era, they eventually went their separate ways once something different came along.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2014/6/12/5803652/retroactive-reconstruction-part-xi Source: cagesideseats.com

1. The Union

Officially, it was the “Union of People You OUghta Respect, Son” (UPYOURS), which is a clever acronym if nothing else, but most people remember it by the more simple name of “The Union”. It was formed by a group of disgruntled wrestlers, all carrying 2×4’s for some reason, who had recently been fired from, or abused by, Vince McMahon’s evil Corporation stable. The goal, as it usually is in pro wrestling, of getting revenge. Among its ranks were future Hall of Famers like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Mankind, and The Big Show. Also, Test was there, which will be important in a moment. The Union didn’t last very long, either as a subtle nod to Vince McMahon’s real-life feelings on unions, or just because it was the Attitude Era and creative plans changed on a weekly basis, but while it was around, somehow, it managed to change the landscape of professional wrestling forever. You see, one week on Raw, newly appointed part-owner of WWE Steve Austin (it’s complicated) decided to reward The Union by granting them each one thing that they most desired. For some reason, Test requested a date with the Vince McMahon’s daughter Stephanie. Eventually, the two became an item, Test managed to win the family’s approval, and they were set to be married on a very special episode of Raw. Unfortunately, that wedding was interrupted by some guy named Triple H, who had secretly already married Stephanie beforehand in a wildly convoluted plan that actually made no sense. However, it did lead to the on-screen and eventual real-life pairing of Triple H and Stephanie, who you may now know as The Authority, and also the people who will be taking over WWE if Vince ever decides he finally wants to die.

http://pl.wwe.com/photos/2013/10/11/the-most-underrated-stables-of-all-time-photos;jsessionid=85E341334DD8BFF023BFDC3F2CA5EB85?r30_r1_r1:page=25 Source: pl.wwe.com