What is TNA's Obsession With Factions?

[michael.foulds]

From as long as I remember, TNA has normally centred around two factions, a face faction trying to regain order and a heel faction who have/trying to take control of the company.

Some examples:
Planet Jarrett
Christian's Coalition
Angle Alliance
MEM
Frontline
Immortal

I know I've only mentioned one face faction there, but they have usuall fought together without a name. People will say Hogan and Bischoff's influence because of their NWO love, but they have only been there for a year and it's been going on for awhile now. So does it go back to Russo?

 

[jccool420]

It's kind of lazy booking...

Russo is pretty famous for the stable wars because it is a very simple formula... Heel faction forms to take over/dominate... It gives all the faces one main storyline and easy heat for lowercard heels...

When done right, it works great... But, it usually just gets over done and watered down very quickly...

I would like for this Immortal group to work, but I get the feeling that this new "They" will sour a lot of people on the whole angle unless this is something huge that we could never guess... But, you just can't set your hopes too high on TNA storylines...

 

[JuviJuiceIsLoose]

TNA doesn't have an obsession with factions. Professional wrestling period has an obsession with factions.

At least they have since The Four Horsemen.

Look at the WWE. They've been using dominant heel factions going back to the Heenan Family.

There was a point in ROH where they had the faction wars.

The roster of Dragon Gate is pretty much divided into 2 or 3 groups.

That's just the way professional wrestling is.

I think the problem with TNA's factions is that there always seem to have the same people in those factions.

 

[Spam102]

I think its pretty easy to see their obsession with factions. Most of the greatest story lines in wrestling history revolved around factions. The Monday Night Wars were the highest point in wrestling history and they were all about factions. NWO, DX, The Corporation, The Ministy, Nation of Domination, The Hart Foundation. When they are done right, factions are the best story lines in wrestling. I think its the exact opposite of lazy booking because it takes a lot more work to do it right than a 1 on 1 feud does.

 

[Calderownz]

Truthfully, I thin it's TNA's hope of creating that big group that catches on. Something along the lines of nWo or DX. However, what they don't realize is that those two caught on because it was fresh. Not new, but fresh.

However, I like the concept of a group within a group. Still, I think they need to focus on individuals and not groups.

They also hope the group gets guys over, when guys usually get the group over. They should focus on making some stars and then hope they can make some fresh things happen.

 

[UFOcalling]

I COMPLETELY agree with JuviJuiceIsLoose. Pro Wrestling has been obsessed with factions since the 80s. It's a formula that works, that's why EVERY wrestling company does it.

I'm getting really sick of everyone complaining, and acting like Impact is the only show that focuses on a heel faction. Have all the WWE-marks/TNA-haters become completely blind? Can they not see that Raw is completely dominated by The Nexus every week? Nexus is in more than half the segments on Raw every week, but people act like Impact is so much worse (even though they're practically doing the same thing).

Now, I know that Nexus is a stable of "young" wrestlers/rookies, as opposed to Immortal (which has some main-eventers, veterans, etc)...but the fact remains that both Raw and Impact center around a heel faction that dominate their respective shows. It's just so frustrating to read posts that praise the Nexus angle, while completely trashing the Immortal angle; simply because Immortal "dominates" TV-time on Impact. Please...how much screen-time and/or how many segments did Nexus get this past Monday? Just as much as Immortal does on average? Answer: Yes.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I think its Russo

When he first went to TNA there was the TNA vs S.E.X stable war, and all the other faction rivalries mentioned by the OP.

It is lazy booking, but we all know Russo loves a good faction, he always has. Look at WWE and WCW while he was there, full of factions.

Interesting thought...was TNA full of big factions while Russo was not involved with the booking there? I cant think

 

[Vendetta487]

Its not their obsession with factions that bother me, its their obsession with crappy thrown together factions like Immortal that annoys me. Its another example of a bunch of guys thrown together without any type of connection in order to "dominate" the company. At least Nexus has connection in that they all started in NXT and chose to stick together. For Immortal they took a bunch of guys that weren't doing anything and said "hey, lets make a dominant faction". There was no build in the stupid "they" crap. They just threw together another group, just like fortune. Factions only work when there is a logical connection other than "hey, lets all join forces because we got nothing else to do".

 

[daby]

I don't know why some people complain about TNA's factions. In all their 8 year history, TNA always had great, great stables. Ok, maybe with the exception of Kings Of Wrestling (Jarrett, Nash, Hall) ... such a great storyline chance missed in a laughable way.

S.E.X., Planet Jarrett, Christian's Coalition, Angle Alliance, MEM, Frontline, Immortal were all great stables. I remember even that ECW group TNA had back in 2003 with Perry Saturn, Sandamn, New Jack and Justin Credible. They were great, even through they weren't running the show.

 

[The HEEL JuiceLee]

Its simple, Factions are Great. But u cant have the whole roster to be in a faction unless u do it how wwe did when they haD
DX
HART FOUNDATION
THE NATION OF DOMINATION
AND THE BALD MOTORCYCLE GUYS.I FORGOT WHAT THEY WERE CALLED,BUT THEY WERE THE HARRIS BROTHER

The reason that worked is because they werent huge.they all had between 3-5 guys.
but IMMoRTaLFourTuNe is like 12 guys,& EV2.0 had like 8 guys at 1st,and WHEN they make the face faction they will need between 7-9 guys just to keep up in the numbers game..Personaly I Love factions & if i was a booker i would create atleast 1 new faction a year,but i would control the numbers.

!!just 1 guys opinion!!

 

[SpecialFNK]

Its simple, Factions are Great. But u cant have the whole roster to be in a faction unless u do it how wwe did when they haD
DX
HART FOUNDATION
THE NATION OF DOMINATION
AND THE BALD MOTORCYCLE GUYS.I FORGOT WHAT THEY WERE CALLED,BUT THEY WERE THE HARRIS BROTHER

The reason that worked is because they werent huge.they all had between 3-5 guys.
but IMMoRTaLFourTuNe is like 12 guys,& EV2.0 had like 8 guys at 1st,and WHEN they make the face faction they will need between 7-9 guys just to keep up in the numbers game..Personaly I Love factions & if i was a booker i would create atleast 1 new faction a year,but i would control the numbers.

!!just 1 guys opinion!!

I agree with this.
factions need to be small. I thought Fortune was great. 4 wrestlers and Flair. they could have been brilliant, but then they suffered because they joined with Immortal. that's another problem. Immortal is too big, the numbers game isn't even close with whoever is on the faces. Immortal VS Fortune I think could have worked a lot better.
one of the biggest factions/stables that did so great(in the beginning) was the nWo. early on they were great, but then they just kept growing and adding new members.
another one of the best factions/stables in wrestling history was Four Horsemen. no matter who was in it at different times, it was always 4. of course they couldn't add more because it was "Four" Horsemen, but it worked.

 

[ABMorales787]

Most people don't like it, but in most occasions, they've helped TNA. The TNA vs SEX story attracted an audience in it's earlier days and established AJ Styles pretty quickly. The MEM helped put over guys like Matt Morgan, Hernandez, Eric Young and reaffirmed AJ Styles as the top performer of the company as well as garnering some of it's highest ratings. The new faction, Immortal, seems to be doing the same thing the MEM did last year, but with the new added figures of Hardy, Van Dam, Anderson and co. Most people don't really like the factions, but you can't deny they've had a fair amount of success.

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

Forget factions, I think I've heard Bischoff refer to it as a "power struggle". The point of it being your normal world heavyweight match you have Mr. A vs. Mr. B. Now this is all good and dandy but it doesn't impact (no pun intended) on the rest of the company. So the title changes hands, what relevance does it have in the scheme of things if it'll change back again in 3 months time. I can see psychologically where the drive for factions in wrestling comes from.

It narrows everything down to teams or sides, and makes things more realistic. Normal life is full of people who group themselves into certain cultures and sub-cultures and opposing groups are seen as outsiders and rarely do the two groups mix. Factions just make everything more simple and more important in one. I mean don't forget WWE has a rich history of factions looking now at the nexus and corre groups, it's just that russo does factions on a larger scale getting almost everyone in on the act. I actually support it, I think it is a better state of where a company is at but as long as it's done right and bringing back the MEM isn't doing it right for me.

Factions are also potentially an excuse for easier script writing, don't have to look at guys on an individual basis apart from the upper most members , the rest of the group just acts as one being. But for me, factions have always proven to be successful because they are all-encompasing and relatable.

 

[Vinco Menz]

Simply put, it is easier to book a faction full of guys than it is to book each one seperately. Thats why almost everyone in TNA is in a faction. Russo doesn't know what he is doing with his main eventers half the time, so why would he know what the hell to do with the mid to lower cards. Its just easier for Russo to tack them up with an already eastablished star like Flair or Hogan than it is for him to take the time and actually biuld people up on their own. Another thing is that TNA's roster is so damn big that the only way to get just half of it on Impact every week is to put them all together as a faction. Russo should really trim his roster.

 

[T2KFreeker]

Russo should really trim his roster.

So, now it's Russo's roster? Not to be rude, but what makes you think that Vince Russo hires and fires anyone in TNA? In the end, he may have some small thing to do with it, but I doubt anyone would give Vince Russo Hire and Fire powers after what happened in WCW. I can also guarantee you this is not the case JUST in the fact that Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and Ric Flair are in the company.

Factions are cool if done right. The bad thing with what TNA has been doing is they are trying to capture flavors of days gone by. You got the Four Horsemen, you've had the nWo thing, you had the ECW vibe with EV2.0, then there was the wanna' be Ravens Flock with Serotonin, MEM, it goes on and on. If they booked the stuff better, it would be cool. They are getting better as the whole Immortal thing, while not amazing, it has been entertaining and fun to see where it is going to go. Oh, and TNA isn't the only wrestling group fascinated with Factions. Look at WWE over the last ten years. Evolution, the return of DX, CM Punk and his group, and now Nexus and Corre. I know for a fact I am missing some too! Oh, and lame ass ones like "Mexicools"!