Best/Worst stables ever

[Drunken Aviator]

Upon my recent viewing of oldish WWE shows, Factions got me thinking. Face it, apart from SES and NXTWO, they are pretty much dead now.


My personal all time favourite is:


Evolution

I liked how the group moulded together. In a way you could say they were the modern day horsemen (given a longer run). You had Orton with his sharp wit, you had your right hand man, your muscle in Batista, you had the veteran of the ring, who always knew how to get a victory no matter what in Hunter and you had the sixteen time world Champion Ric Flair.


My Worst:


The Radicalz

I love the Radicalz as individual wrestlers and would have willingly paid back in the day to watch them wrestle one another for an hour or more. I agree that they sort of dropped the ball with something that seemed to generate quite a lot of excitement - it was voted best acquisition of 2000 if I remember rightly, and how they began things was pretty good. Their relevance could have been maintained by them having high profile feuds with a face stable, but there wasn't really one, something that I feel undermined them. Soon enough, Benoit was on his own, followed by Guerrero, Saturn was being used comically, and unlike in WCW, they didn't know what to do with Malenko. The guys had natural bonds together that could have been used much more effectively.


What are your best and worst?

 

[Spidey Revivey]

Best Stable of All Time:

StraightEdge Society/Right To Censor: To me the most remarkable factions to ever be created. To take such a stand against drugs, alcohol, sex etc. and STILL be able to draw crowd heat has got to be playing your role perfectly. Even in a PG Era, to have such a gimmick is in my opinion most profound.

Worst Stable Of All Time:

Blue World Order: Steven Richards seems to love him some gimmicks. He was awesome in RTC and Raven's Flock, but here I have to just say no. It's main intention was to parody one of the most popular groups at the time (we all know which one) and it did okay in ECW, but just that. It was a jist at comedy and that was it.

 

[Ducey13]

Well if we are gonna keep it in the WWE, then yes EVOLUTION was my favorite stable. For all the reasons you listed about and more. Every single one of them manage to grow and get better with each other. Even Flair who has seen and done it all made himself that much greater by playing godfather to this group. Triple H was the top heel in the company forever and Randy and Batista both grew into 2 of WWE's top 5 guys. Very effective stable.

Overall I think WCW nWo was better then Evolution but not WWE nWo. Also I know alot of people will say DX. As a TAG TEAM with Hunter and Michaels they were great. But I never thought the stable with Hunter, Chyna, X-Pac, Road Dogg, and Billy Gunn was that great. Yes they were over in a huge way, but it didn't elevate anyone really. Triple H didn't get going for real until after DX, and The New Age Outlaws were once again, over as hell, but really talentless, thats why they didn't survive with WWE post DX.

In regards to the Radicalz, a big reason that it didn't work out was Eddie Guerrero getting Hurt. Once that happen the group disbanded soon after. You could say the Union was just as pointless (Shamrock, Big Show, Mankind, and Test) they lasted all of a month.

The worst. Hmmmmm? Been alot of bad ones. I could say something like The Oddities because they did nothing. Or something an unmemorible as say Lo-Down.

But I'm gonna pick on Legacy. They were given plenty of TV time, plenty of time to bond together, and some significant pushes and nothing. Not one memorable moment from this group. Sure Randy did some stuff in the time that was great, like punting Vince McMahon. But did it make you hate the already heel Randy Orton, or the Group Legacy? They totally failed to get Ted and Cody over as heels or make Legacy a legit threat.

 

[The Man They Call WMD]

My best would be the the whole attitude era. DX the corporation the ministry. Those 3 all kinda blended with other out side groups. The brood kinda joined in and they all traded peaces of their respected group.

The worst for me would have to be the oddities. It wasnt that they werent entertaining. Its just that they were odd.... Idk have to watch them to understood. They did how ever have one of the greatest entry musics ever tho.

 

[Sgt Ledbetter]

Best stable of all time- nWo
Worst stable of all-time-nWo

Let me explain....The original nWo was an amazing storyline and basically saved wrestling in 1996-1997. I never thought much of WCW other than just "the other wrestling promotion" however this angle forced me to watch Nitro every week just to see what was gonna happen. It had great talent and name value, Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, Hennig, etc. Then the members grew and the talent in the nWo became watered down, Stevie Ray, Horace Hogan, Brian Adams, etc. At this point anything nWo became uninteresting. No matter what they tried it just wasnt the same, thus making nWo the best and ultimately the worst stable in wrestling history

 

[Chargersfan1901]

Best Stables - DX (Of course), The Cooportation, Ministry of darkness. All 3 of these had such an amazing run in the attitude era, the story lines were amazing. The people in them were amazing. Always remembered.

I really have no 'Worst stables", but they're were some bad ones.. I didn't like 3 Minute Warning, X Factor, any of those..

 

[Reddannihilation]

Best stable- Original nWo. No doubt about it, without the nWo there wouldn't be a DX or a Corporation.
Four Horsemen-the most idenitfiable power faction in wrestling history.

Worst stable-the New blood. Vince Russo leads an army of midcarders and jobbers against DDP, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting, Kevin Nash and Lex Luger. Who's gonna win that popularity contest?

 

[Oracular Spectacular]

Best Stable

NWO(circa 1996-1997
Bold, in-your-face, contriversial, kept you on the edge of your seat, dominated the program(while still giving 30 min to the cruiserweight division) NWO was the hottest thing going on for a few years. DX was entertaining but didn't have the limelight that the NWO did. The NWO dominated Nitro while DX just complimented Raw.

Worst Stable(s)

Los Barracus
Savio Vega's street gang of Latin American jobbers. A few matches with DOA and LOD stand out along with one of them getting knocked out In Edges debut match.

 

[swamprat37]

Best
Heenan Family--for years the Brain had some of the best talent under him. He was always in the main event.
nWo-- When it first came out, pure shock value of who was involved alone made them great. Seeing how well the gelled made it even better.
4-Horsemen-- Without them there would have never been an nWo, DX or many of the stables we now know. They dominated the NWA for years, and had some of the best pure all around talent of any of the stables in all of wrestling.

Worst
The Oddities...Kurrgan, Golgla, i think Luna was there too. I hated this group, saw no real use for them.
Latino World Order.. nWo was dying, and this was a lame attempt to bring some new life into it. imo it failed miserably.

 

[THE SWAG]

the best i would have to with the one that started it all the freebirds and or the horseman, those two paved the way for all the stables that have created after them.

the worst has to be LWO/BWO, just to cash in on something that succeeded, and trying to branch it out, not good .

 

[boozinjedi]

Best stable of all time- nWo
Worst stable of all-time-nWo

Let me explain....The original nWo was an amazing storyline and basically saved wrestling in 1996-1997. I never thought much of WCW other than just "the other wrestling promotion" however this angle forced me to watch Nitro every week just to see what was gonna happen. It had great talent and name value, Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, Hennig, etc. Then the members grew and the talent in the nWo became watered down, Stevie Ray, Horace Hogan, Brian Adams, etc. At this point anything nWo became uninteresting. No matter what they tried it just wasnt the same, thus making nWo the best and ultimately the worst stable in wrestling history

I have to agree on this one,At first it was groundbreaking..it made you want to turn on WCW each week to see what was happening,but afterwhile it just got too big,so big they had 2 nWo groups...red&black AND black&white.
Another thing that I got sick of with the NWO was how they grew...a new person would show up every few weeks and save the face/good guy from an NWO beatdown,only to have him turn on the guy and show an nWo shirt..it got to the point where you pretty much expected it,AND THAT WAS THE MAIN REASON WHY I (and many others) WENT BACK TO WATCHING WWF/E!!!

 

[marklouis]

Best: Original NWO-Hall, Nash, Hogan. Probably go up to when Bischoff was revealed as the power behind the curtain. But then they added too many people & watered it down. Really, they should've just kept it to old WWF guys & made it a true outsider-type group. But the NWO completely changed wrestling & set the stage for an entire era.

4 Horseman: They are the originals, created the idea of a stable. You have to give them props as one of if not the best.

Worst: Legacy. Maybe I'm being harsh, but they had real potential & never did anything with it. They never progressed past being Orton's stooges, & that really hurt the development of Rhodes & Dibiase. Why didn't they get a run with the tag titles? Why not add a couple other guys? And when they finally broke up, it was a complete let down. Just a completely wasted opportunity. Now, Dibiase & Rhodes are struggling to establish themselves.

 

[BWEEZY2009]

Best

The Four Horsemen- Their promo's were so realist and believable to the point you wanted to see them lose. I've always been a huge fan of Heels so I rooted for them, but could easily see a babyface lover hating them legit.

Nation of Domination- Once again, their promos were so deep to the point where they were immediately over. They drew legit heat and the fans could not stand Farooq


Worse

NWO- It had all the potential in the world to be in the best category. Their ego's got in the way and the story lines got STALE You can't have a faction continually beat down your whole roster to the point it made everyone but the NWO look like Jobbers. Towards the end of the run, every time I heard their Music I changed the channel. (And I was a huge fan at first)

JBL Cabinet- I don't really know why I hated it so much. They just never got over with me. The Bashams were pretty good in the ring but the gimmick almost made them goofy (thats saying a lot coming from a tag team that just came from a dominatrix whipping them for a pre-match momentum boost)

 

[Simmo]

Best - Hart Foundation (with Owen, Pillman, Anvil, Davey and Bret) they just owned the show at that time and made me want to watch each week - set the stage for DX and other groups that followed

Worst - The Heenan Family, any group lead by "the weasel" always made me boo from the start and they were all the baddest of bad heels and I hated them as a kid

 

[Klown_Karnage]

There are so many to choose from. I'm not certain if I can accurately say which ones were best and worst, so I'll just go with my favorite and least favorite.

Favorite: Ministry of Darkness (Original). Now, 'Taker in his heyday knew how to be extremely scary and he did stuff with the various people that stable collected to make them far more frightening than they had been before. I remember seeing when the ministry collected Viscera (then known as Mabel.) The beginning of that particularly gave me goosebumps. One of the most theatrical of the stables and yet consistently entertaining.

Least Favorite: The Spirit Squad. Okay, these guys were supposed to be a goofy college gimmick but the fact is that I just found them terribly annoying (as in Vickie Guerrero level annoying.) I suppose the only good thing about that was the immense satisfaction I got when bad things happened to them.

 

[indicools]

Best stable: Ministry of Darkness and Evolution. I'll give equal preference to both since they were sooo cool and intimidating

Worst stable: Spirit Squad and Tajiri's Japanese gangsta stable. Both sucked to the core equally and had no meaning absolutely.

 

[E_LICIOUS]

Three words for this topic:
THE FOUR HORSEMEN and that is it. Like Bret Hart is the self proclaimed best there is, was, and ever will be, well THE FOUR HORSEMEN isn't self proclaimed they were! The four original when I was a kid comprised of Ollie and Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and the immortal(excuse the pun)Ric Flair were the best group of Horsemen and in my opinion the best stable EVER! You had The Andersons which were great beyond belief, straight hard-nosed, in your face, beat you to a pulp brothers that were BAD A_S wrestlers. Also, you had Tully which held the T.V. Title(NWAs intercontinental equivalent)for God knows how long, not to mention one of the most technically sounded wrestlers ever(later on in the WWF he and Arn would form the Brain Busters, which also found gold). Finally you had in what is my opinion, the GREATEST one on one character/it-factor/womanizer/space mountain drivin'/limo ridin'/a-s kickin'/16 Time championship havin' wrestler there ever was or will be. If you wanna be him then you got to beat him and then you don't even come close brother! When you put all of that talent in one stable(faction) and you have The Nature Boy lookin his best in his prime in the mid-1980's, then you have one great stable. There are others that are/were great but none compare to THE FOUR HORSEMEN(original version). They are what got me into wrestling as a kid. Saturday afternoons for about 3 hours at my Grandmothers house watching NWA Wrestling on TBS in the mid-1980s are some of the best memories I have as a kid and THE FOUR HORSEMEN(Arn, Ollie, Tully, and Ric)highlighted that. I hope there are some of you that remember that version of the Horsemen and I hope that you would at least somewhat agree. Those Four are part of what made wrestling what it is today.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Okay, I have to name a lot...

Best
The Four Horsemen - Does anything need to be said here...

DX - They were just funny...

WCW nWo - They got the war on their side...took control of everything...

Evolution - Another great stable..the best of the decade...

Nation of Domination - This was a good stable..

Worst
The Alliance - I believe this was a stable, it would have been much better if Vince could have gotten the contracts of a few more great WCW wrestlers...

3-Minute Warning - The only thing I enjoyed was their entrance theme...and it wasn't even that good...

bWo - nWo rip off

Spirit Squad - Seriously...what was this...

 

[Y2Jerichoholic11]

best: DX
worst: Spirit Squad

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

The best has to be the original nWo or DX, no question. Both were so important to the success of the business back in the 90s, and were revolutionary at the time.

The worst????? hmmm quite hard to say, there have been some absolute shockers. Maybe the J.O.B squad or Los Burricas or however you spell it? Both sucked

And I HATED Right To Censor...but looking back they were great in the roles they played!

 

[Macskye]

I have to say the best stable, with the most success has got to have been Evolution. They were a dominant force in there time, had a lot of great Success, were always entertaining to watch and Batista and Orton both went on to be Multi time World Champions. It's a no brainer.

The worst however, well there have been so many, the oddities, x factor, blue world order and right to censor etc. what did these's faction accomplish? nothing.

 

[Vintage]

Best

This is hard, there are sooo many that while might not have been popular did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Right to Sensor. These guys were great. If people think the SES is great, then this stable was brilliant. Stevie Richards was doing what CM Punk and to an extent Jericho is doing now basically 10 years ago and although it was a bit dry at times the man was a heat magnet. I loved the hand thing they did, how Ivory got involved and freakin reformed the god father. No godfather..no hoes.. yeah I hate these pricks already. I got a chance to go to a live event at MSG when they were still around and I remember 2 things, my ears hurting after the entrance and my throat being sore for booing the crap out of them lol.

Worst

NWO

Simply put, that shit got way out of hand. They had a good thing going and it imploded under it's own weight. Having like 8 different factions or incarnations in a 3-4 year period didn't help either

 

[Judah's Lion]

i hate posting to these things so late cuz all the good ones are taken, lol.

honorable mentions, of course, have to go to a few for the best:
4 Horseman
nWo (original)
DX
Corporation
Ministry of Darkness
Evolution (like an updated Horsemen, or so it seemed to me, especially with Flair there)
Nation of Domination
Hart Foundation (Bret, Owen, Bulldog, Anvil and Pillman)

honorable mentions to the worst:
nWo (when it got out of hand or was attempted in WWE)
X-Factor
any of the "Gang Wars" factions
Oddities

of the ones not mentioned yet as of this writing, i'll say these for the best:
Team Angle. okay, it was really slim pickens for me at this point as most of the good one were already posted more than once, but this was actually a good faction. Angle is gold on the mic and in the ring and he had two very talented wrestlers in Haas and Benjamin. they certainly had the gold to back it up!

for the worst:
Dark Carnival -- anyone remember this one with Vampiro and Insane Clown Posse and Great Muta and maybe some others? this was pretty bad. it was supposed to be scary but typically came off as really stupid. just my opinion.
Misfits in Action -- i actually liked and still do like some of the original talent in this faction, but the gimmick makeovers were terrible. Booker T is amazing! GI Bro is terrible. Chavo is a very gifted wrestler and pretty good on the stick too. Lieutenant Loco was a disgrace. i even liked Lash LeReoux some, but Corporal Cajun was bad. very, very bad idea here.
Team Canada -- love Lance Storm! but this just felt like a rip off of a very cool Hart Foundation. plus Hacksaw joining...? what happened there?
J.O.B. Squad -- i don't even know what the idea here was, but Al Snow, Hardcore Holly and Blue Meanie do not form anything that can remotely be considered as a threatening stable. this was an epic fail.
3 Count -- the gimmick wasn't the worst idea. bringing in Tank Abbott was.

 

[Ferbian]

Best: There's two kind of bests in my mind, the ones that should, or would be considered the greatest faction of all time, and I would say that is The Four Horsemen, it achieved pretty much anything you could possibly want a faction to accomplish.

They revolutionized the business, they won championships after championships, and they made stars and future Hall of Fame inductees.

The second type of best, is the one that is your favorite, which would have to be Evolution, just like The Four Horsemen it accomplished a lot, it got incredibly over as heels, it was new to WWE, but not to the business, but it still worked incredibly well, it created stars, and they had an amazing angle going with this faction.

I would put The Four Horsemen as my favorite was it not because of the members of Evolution being wrestlers I preferred over The Four Horsemen.

Worst: Spirit Squad. These guy's were paired with Vince McMahon to feud with D-generation X and they still didn't get over, they still didn't accomplish the things a faction or tag team should accomplish.

They won 1 championship during their time with WWE, they all had amazing talent, especially Kenny Dykstra and Nick Nemeth (Dolph Ziggler) and it could've really worked as a great faction, or good at least, if it had been booked properly and gotten over.

But it didn't, and I didn't think highly of it, so obviously it's gonna be what I consider the worst.

 

[Prophecy of Darkness]

BEST

Ministry of Darkness:I'm a little biased here,but this stable was incredible.Everyone was afraid of these guys,and it also helped that The Undertaker was a total monster during this time.Those sacrifices were masterpieces,it's a shame they didn't get much gold.

Four Horsemen:Come on,this has to be the best ever.It's the stable that all others aspire to be like.The Horsemen were the toughest of the tough,and they didn't take any shit from anyone.It's also one of the many highlights of Ric Flair's career.Longevity,championships,and possibly the biggest draw of the NWA? yep,that about sums it up.

WORST

nWo(1999-2000):wow,what a clusterfuck this was.This was a prime example of too much of a good thing is a bad thing,and because of everyone and their grandma being a member,the nWo eventualy swallowed WCW up before Vince put it out of its misery.

Spirit Squad:Mcmahon needed bodyguards and the best he comes up with is male cheerleaders?!this gimmick was so annoying,and the worst part is none of the young talent that made up this thing had the chance to do anything else after it was over(what has Dolph Ziggler really done since this?)