Multiply and Conquer

With all of the success that “The Nexus” is having right now, I wanted to discuss factions. Factions are small groups within bigger organizations.

There have been a lot of factions to come along since the 80s. But today I am going to go in depth about what makes a good faction by using some of the best, and showing their strengths and weakness.

The wrestling faction has been around for years. But they did not become big until the mid-80s. That was when the 4-horsemen debuted.

Throughout the 80s, the biggest wrestler in the land was Ric Flair, who was a multi time World Champion. He was traveling all over the world defending the NWA world title, back when the champ would do that. He was a very accomplished wrestler, being able to keep the title all on his own. But when he and Ole and Arn Anderson, started working together in tag team matches, you could see the chemistry was developing between them. After befriending Telly Blanchard, the group was up and running. All they needed was a name. So one night on WCW (not the company, but the name of the show, back in the 80s) Arn said that they were the 4-horsemen of pro wrestling. What made the horsemen work was the fact that all four were great wrestlers. They had the champ as their anchor and they did everything needed to keep that title. It made fans hate them, which made them seem greater. You always watched to see if someone could beat them, and put them out of commission. What did not work for them, was when Ole, and Telly left, and they had to get other members in the group who did not fit the mold of the originals. That is one way a faction will runs its course.

There were a few other factions to come by after the horsemen. The Dangerous Alliance, the York Foundation, The Dudes with Attitudes, The Fabulous Free birds, The Heenan Family, all factions in the late 80s and early 90s. But none of them were able to stick around and make a name for themselves. That is until this one group came around called the NWO.

The NWO was a group that was started by Eric Bischoff, back when he was going toe to toe with the WWE. He needed to do something to change wrestling, and to make the WWE fans, come over to WCW. So he signed 3 major WWE former wrestlers. 1st he signed Hulk Hogan, who “retired” from wrestling. Then he signed Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash. Hall and Nash came in as heels (bad guys), and kept saying they were working with someone else. Later on the wrestling world was shocked to find out that it was Hulk Hogan, who was the biggest face (good guy) of the entire 80s and much of the 90s. Hulk Hogan said in his 1st interview that they were the New World Order of professional wrestling. The NWO did a lot of good things. Every week you had to watch to see what they would do, and who they would convert to their side. The down side was maybe they went on too long. They went on so long, in fact that their faction broke into two sub-factions. One was face, and the other was heel. They had many incarnations from their beginning in 96 to the end of WCW in 2001. And even behind the scenes this faction was not good for the business. Hogan and Nash at the forefront of this faction was no good. Both men have been notorious for playing back stage politics to get themselves the main event push. Nash was even the booker (the person who decides the outcome) for WCW when he won his 1st title. And in doing so, he ended Bill Goldberg’s historic title run. To make matters worse, Nash booked the ending where he dropped the title to Hogan, after a finger poke (yes you read that correctly).

Of course after the beginning of the NWO, WWE came back with D-generation X, which basically was 2 real life best friends (Shawn Michaels and Triple H) hanging out with each other on screen instead of just back stage. WWE also had the Nation of Domination, The Corporation, the Ministry of Darkness (the latter 2 became one later on), and a few others sprinkled here and there throughout the 90s and 2000s. Now we get to a faction I really think worked. In TNA in 2008 Kurt Angle gathered Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Booker T, and Sting, and formed a group called the Main Event Mafia. The whole purpose of the group was that they were all Champions at one point or another, and they did not feel they were getting the respect of the younger guys in the business, and they were going to join together and show the young guys how it was done. Again this faction started around the world title. And, although the fans never turned against Sting, the rest of the guys were heels. They fought to keep the title in their grasp, and they upset the wrestlers and fans when they cheated for each other. Their down fall came from the fact that these guys are all older. Most of them are not even in TNA anymore. But when they were around, they were great for wrestling.

So Nexus you have a lot to learn if you want to be like these legendary factions I have focused on. You are on the right track. Keep up the good work, and maybe you will be there.


AND THAT'S THE BOTTOM LIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE