Ten Factions You May Not Remember

I love the concept of factions in wrestling. Some organizations such as WWE dont use them enough, others like AEW seem to have too many with none really standing out.

Since wrestling is a trial and error business. They often have to try and see what sticks, and its not always successful.  

Even as a fan, pro wrestling much like life in general can be a blur. The world of pro wrestling moves so fast, as the years go by you often forget things that happen. Here are ten factions you may not remember either because they were so short lived, or the idea just fell flat.

10. Union

                                

During the Attitude era a motley crue of wrestlers joined forces for a brief time. Mick Foley, Ken Shamrock, The Big Show and Test were at point or another members of the Corporation led by Mr. McMahon. They all were wronged by the group at some point so they decided to team up, carry 2 x 4's to the ring to have an additional advantage against the muscle of the Corporation.

The group was only around for a month, so they didn't really make an impact or advance any of the members careers at that point.

9. Death Crew Council

                                                       

 

The Death Crew Council (DCC) was a trio comprised of James Storm, Eddie Kingston, and Bram. After an angle where James Storm was suspended indefinitely by Impact officials, vignettes started appearing of three masked men who would restore order to Impact.

Eventually the three masked men appeared and revealed themselves. Unfortunately nothing else happened after that with the trio, they didnt win any championships or engage in any meaningful feuds. They seperated not even lasting a full year as a unit, and for that you probably dont remember them. 


8. The Network

                                         

The Network was born out of Paul Heyman's frustrations dealing with TNN when they aired ECW. He decided to create a stable to portray as Network representives holding ECW back from growing. The Network was led by Cyrus TheVirus (Don Callis) and his franchise player the anti-hardcore Steve Corino. Along with the young enforcer Rhino, Scotty Anton and Tajiri.

The group slowly faded out as ECW was closer to going out of business. Which is sad because it was such a heat magnet, and a reason to get fans rallied against the establishment that was TNN.

7. La Familia 

In the mid-2000's the Rated R superstar Edge was Thee best heel in the business. Narcissitic, sadistic, the ultimate opportunists Edge played all his roles to perfection. Starting in late 2007 he gained some new look alike followers dubbed The Edgeheads (Matt Cardona and Brian Meyers), then started a relationship with Vickie Guerrero.

They decided to combine their "families" and soon Chavo Guerrero and the young rookie Bam Neely joined the group to become La Familia. The purpose of the group was to keep the championship in Edge's hand. The group was the top villain group on the Smackdown brand from 2007 through 2009ish when they started to break apart. While entertaining, unfortunately the group did not do anything memorable which is why you may not remember them. 

6. Magnificent Seven

Towards the end of WCW's run as a company, Ric Flair was on the on air CEO for the organization. Since he let the power get to his head, he had to hire some muscle to take care of his dirty work for total supremacy of WCW.

As such the Magnificent Seven was born comprised of Flair, Jeff Jarrett, The Steiner Brothers, Animal, Buff Bagwell and The Total Package. Nothing more than a carbon copy of WWE's more successful The Corporation, no one was watching WCW at this time so the group fell into the abyss when WCW folded.

5. The Corre

                                  

In 2011 CM Punk took over Nexus as it's leader and dubbed it the New Nexus. Kicking Wade Barrett out and shipping him to Smackdown, Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater soon followed Barrett. The three aligned with Ezekial Jackson to become The Corre.

The Corre was nothing more than a Nexus rip off, and another vehicle for Barrett to display his mic skills and continue to be the superstar he should have been. Other than that and a couple of championships, The Corre never gave fans any reason to care about them. Thus when they disbanded 8 months later no one care. 

4. Immortal

                                            

In 2010 TNA made the grand decision to bring Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan on board to help the organization compete against the WWE. They hired alot of their friends and rehashed alot of old stories, one of which of course was an invasion type group. Immortal was really a who's who of wrestlers in TNA at the time.

Jeff Hardy, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss, and the members of Fourtune (A group I actually enjoyed during the time). AJ Styles, Kazarian, Ric Flair, Christopher Daniels, Bobby Roode, Matt Morgan, Desmond Wolfe, and James Storm. Later members such as Gunner, Matt Hardy, Rob Terry and a few other folks joined. Much like the nWo, Immortal soon became bloated and amounted to nothing.

They attempted to be the nWo and failed miserably. 

3. Kurt angles smackdown group

                                             

In 2004 nursing an injury, but still wanting to contribute Kurt Angle became the on-air Commissioner of Smackdown. By his side was his bodyguard/personal assistant Luther Reigns, the two were soon joined by young WCW transplant Mark Jindrak. 

I guess the three were considered a new Team Angle, but to my recollection they were never given a group name. They also didn't really do anything spectacular as Reigns and Jindrak were solid wrestlers but not attention grabbers. The group never amounted to anything and faded away.

2. TNA Front Line

                                                     

In 2008 TNA was under a hostile takeover by the Main Event Mafia (Sting, Kevin Nash, Booker T., Scott Steiner). Feeling slighted by the establishment taking all of their title opportunities, the spotlight and credit for TNA being where it was at that point. The guys who have been there since the beginning gathered a few other young guns to battle them.

Just like the WCW New Blood/Millionaires Club feud this didn't really amount to much. The Front Line was comprised of many TNA originals like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Alex Shelley but they didn't gain anything from their constant matches against the legendary figures in the Main Event Mafia. A lost opportunity for TNA to make new stars, and a forgettable group.

1.  New Breed

In 2006 WWE decided to bring the ECW brand back with their own spin on it. In early 2007, another battle of old school vs new school was on the horizon. The team of the New Breed comprised of talented wrestlers like Elijah Burke, Marcus Cor Von (Monty Brown), CM Punk and Kevin Thorn with Ariel were born. Not a group you think would align together in reality, but hey this is WWE land.

Their mission was get rid of anyone still associated with the original ECW. Their biggest match was a WrestleMania moment at Mania 23 against Tommy Dreamer, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, and The Sandman. After that, the group were pretty much lost in the shuffle with no real direction. They were spilt as a group by the summer of 2007. 

Another group that didn't last long you could easily forget about them, just like hundreds of factions in the world of wrestling.