Over the years, professional wrestling has had some legendary factions. From The Four Horsewomen in the 1980’s to DX and the NWO during the era of the Monday Night Wars, factions are as old as professional itself. Even in the modern era, factions like The Shield and The New Day have gotten over massively with fans and established themselves as attractions in their own right.
A major problem with a lot of factions is that the members are just thrown in together randomly and they have no chemistry together. They fail to create and impact and leave their mark. Even though a faction can be great means to elevate wrestlers to new heights, there are factions that just don’t click.
In this article I look at the 5 most forgettable wrestling factions of all time.
5: Spirit Squad
When the Spirit Squad are number 5, you know that the other factions on this list are really really bad. The spirit squad’s male cheerleader gimmick was dead on arrival. The made their debut in January 2006, helping Jonathan Coachman qualify for the Royal Rumble. Their gimmick soon turned into other wrestler paying them to cheer for them.
Eventually they wound their way into Vince McMahon’s feud with Shawn Michaels. The Spirit Squad’s most memorable moments in WWE came when DX rained feces down on them and Vince McMahon. The Spirit Squads last WWE match came in a 5-on-3 handicap match versus Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. In a backstage segment later in the show, HHH and Shawn Michaels dumped the Spirit Squad into a crate labeled “OVW”, WWE’s then developmental territory. Talk about a burial.
The only one of the group who went on to have a successful WWE career was Nicky, who today is known as Adolph Ziggler. Ziggler’s come a long way since the dark days of the spirit squad and is a former WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
4: The Dungeon of Doom
The Dungeon of Doom were a macabre cartoon joke. The only reason they existed in mid-90’s WCW was so that the all-conquering Hulk Hogan could defeat them so that he could look invincible.
The thought behind Kevin Sullivan’s dungeon of doom was him putting together a group of ‘monsters’, yes monsters, who would fight Hulk Hogan and rid WCW of Hulkamania. Although the stable had a number of famous names in wrestling from Sullivan himself to the former Earthquake and The Giant (Now known as the Big Show), some of the antics that the group were a part of have resulted in their placement on this list.
Some of the stupidest storylines in pro wrestling involve the Dungeon of Doom. Apart from this, some of the worst ever wrestling characters like The Yeti and Zodiac were part of the Dungeon. By the end of 1997, the Dungeon had quietly and thankfully faded away.
3: X-Factor
Who thought it was a good idea to give X-Pac, a lifelong midcarder, his own stable?
X-Pac’s stable included Albert and Justin Credible and looked to be a failure even before they’d got started. The group failed to impress and viewers in attendance and at home just didn’t care. They’re remembered today for their awful theme song (courtesy Uncle Kracker) more than any sort of in-ring accomplishment. While writing this, I Can’t think of any noteworthy moment in the faction’s career other than finally killing of X-Pac’s career. It was all downhill for him from this point on.
The group hung around for a few months before being taken off WWE programming before the Invasion storyline started in summer 2001.
2: The J.O.B Squad
When Al Snow is the best wrestler in a faction, you know there’s a problem. The J.O.B squad was basically a group of wrestlers who were barely good enough to be jobbers so they were banded together. Strength in numbers was the idea behind the faction. However, with the likes of Bob Holly and Gillberg in their ranks, they didn’t get far at all. They continued to job to other wrestlers, except they now did it as a faction.
Their biggest moments came when individual members managed to win the Hardcore Championship a couple of times. The group’s run was not memorable at all and they barely get mentioned on WWE programming today.
On a sidenote, The Social Outcasts are the closest thing to The J.O.B Squad WWE will ever have again.
1: The Oddities
The Oddities started of as heels, aligned with manager The Jackal. When WWE realized that the crowd didn’t give two hoots about them, they were turned into a group of fun loving babyfaces. Members of the group included Kurrigan and Luna vachon.. Truth be told, I wanted to mention the names of the rest of the members of The Oddities but I just don’t remember, because theres no reason to. They did nothing in their short WWE career other than lose repeatedly and be really bad at all things wrestling.
Some of the members of the group looked like carnival performers and their terrible tiedye-ish ring gear didn’t help. They were more of a freak sideshow than any performers who should be taken seriously. In 1999, just a year after getting hired, all 4 members of The Oddities were released from their WWE contracts (probably for being terrible)
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