Five Factions That Could Have Been More

Factions are a big part of wrestling, a group of like minded individuals out to achieve their goals as unit watching each others backs. Nothing wrong with that picture at all, sometimes depending on the promotion there are too many factions or not enough. Even saying all that, throughout the course of wrestling history there are factions that could have been so much more than what they were. 

Here are five factions I believe could have done more in their time together. 

The Cabinet

During the Ruthless Aggression era, JBL was one of the top heels. As any heel should have when he is champion, he had a paid group of guys watching his back. Those guys were known as The Cabinet complete with job duties assigned to each of them, Orlando Jordan was the chief of staff, tag team The Basham Brothers were co-secretaries of Defense. Amy Weber was his image consultant, and later Jillian Hall was his publicist.

Even though the group dominated Smackdown for a good length of time, the problem was other than JBL no one cared about the other members. They were decent wrestlers, but none of them stood out and were simply the punching bags for JBL to escape. There was nothing the WWE did or could do to make people care about them. 

Had they found a way to make people care about anyone other than JBL. This unit could have went down in history as one of the most hated groups ever.

Fortune 

This faction was a goldmine for the Hogan/Bischoff regime of TNA. All in one group you had AJ Styles, Kazarian, Bobby Roode, and James Storm all TNA homegrowns with 2 of the 4 pioneers of the X-Division. Clearly modeled after the Four Horsemen, Ric Flair was added as their manager to drive that point home.

How Could TNA mess this up? It's several different reasons how they did, but the main reason(s) in my opinion are. First they attempted to make AJ Styles a Ric Flair carbon copy complete with wearing a Flair robe to the ring. AJ is his own guy, and you could tell he wasn't comfortable in that role. The other thing was the attempt at another nWo group in Immortal. Which they got gobbled up into and eventually lost their luster.

The group added members like Christopher Daniels (good choice), but then head scratchers like Matt Morgan and Rob Terry. Which made them ineffective as a whole in my opinion, the group disbanded after a year together. If they had not been thrown into Immortal they could have been so much more legendary as a unit.

The Way

During their time in NXT, The Way was one of my favorite acts on the show. It showed a goofier side of Johnny Gargano and Candice Larae, to show they had personality to go along with their flawless wrestling skills. I don't recall exactly how the quartet came together, but Johnny and Candice as industry vets taking Austin Theory and Indi Hartwell the "rookies" under their wing made for comedy gold.

Johnny and Candice played the "mamma and poppa" role with Indi and Austin as their "children" learning the way. It was part family drama, part cultist, and all around hilarious. Everyone played their parts to perfection and had that same aloofness to them. It's a shame it ended after a year, and we all never fully learned the way.

New Blood

When Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo were bought back to WCW to collaborate and make the product better. They decided to start over and rebooted WCW in April 2000, honestly it actually was entertaining for the first few months. It started going off the rails in late June right before the Bash At The Beach fiasco, but what aided in it going off the rails was The New Blood.

Now not The New Blood the faction per say, but the fact you never really knew who was in The New Blood. Other than guys like Jeff Jarrett and Vampiro, the roster of The New Blood was interchangeable on a whim, guys were in and out. One day they were allies of New Blood  then the next they weren't, and their feuds after a while made no sense.

 A much younger group The Natural Born Thrillers came along later that summer and basically took over The New Blood's purpose, but not their mission. Leaving two similar groups with no direction, unable to make a real impact. If The New Blood had kept a core roster of 5 members, no more than 10 if they really wanted to go the faux nWo route. It would have had a bigger impact and meant so much more in their battle against the Millionaires Club and drive home the WCW youth movement. Unfortunately it just was a mess.

Nexus

I think it's well known just how much the air deflated out of the Nexus bubble when Super Cena beat them at Summerslam in 2010. Before that moment, it appeared Nexus was seemingly an unstoppable freight train. They were destructive, believed in the strength in numbers motto, were mostly young unknowns and for the most part all were decent wrestlers. Led by Wade Barrett who I am a huge fan of, you could not tell me he wasn't going to win the WWE championship one day.

Unfortunately after the Super Cena incident, the group just wasn't the same. To "save" their eroding momentum. CM Punk stepped onto the scene as their new leader which led to some additions, departures and a off shoot group named The Corre. It's really a shame because The Nexus really could have held WWE in a strangle hold for another year and gave the wrestlers time to develop into even bigger stars.