WWE's Lost Art: The Disappearance of Stables in the WWE

Where have all the stables gone? 

With all due respect to Vickie Guerrero, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger or even Epico, Primo and Rosa Mendes, these hardly classify as stables. Stables, as we know them, have become completely nonexistent in the WWE. 

We can attribute the end of factions to a wide range of factors. Some say that there’s no need for them any more, others say that the WWE roster is too thin to have them, and others even say that the WWE’s most recent failed attempts at stables have prevented the company from creating new ones. 

All of these arguments certainly have their merit, especially the last one. The WWE’s three most recent factions—the Nexus, the New Nexus and The Corre—all had their shining moments, and the Nexus in particular started off really hot. But all three of these groups fizzled away without making any lasting impact on the WWE. 

This wasn’t because of the stables themselves, however. It was largely because of the way they were booked. 

While the Nexus was treated like a dominant group at first, all of its momentum was killed when Wade Barrett’s team lost to Team WWE at SummerSlam in 2010. While the new Nexus started off as a very unique stable, CM Punk himself completely disbanded the group. While The Corre had some potential, it was a mess from the get-go. 

As an indirect or perhaps direct result, we have yet to see a stable in the WWE since all of these factions disappeared in 2011. 

But 15 years ago, a WWE without stables was something that would have been completely unheard of. Stables not only actually existed—they played a major part in everything we saw on TV week after week. 

Just think about all the great factions that existed in the WWE during the 1990s: D-Generation X, The Corporation, The New Hart Foundation, The Ministry of Darkness, The Corporate Ministry, the Nation of Domination and so on and so forth. And that’s just in the WWE. 

WCW had a number of great factions in the 90s as well: The NWO, NWO Wolfpac, the Four Horsemen, the Radicalz, etc. 

The run of the stable continued into the early 2000s, with the last great stable in mainstream professional wrestling, Evolution, which existed from 2003 to 2005 and, with Randy Orton, Triple H, Batista and Ric Flair as its four members, was arguably the most star-studded faction in wrestling history. 

Stables such as Evolution, DX and the NWO revolutionized professional wrestling in ways that we haven’t seen happen since. They dominated storylines, led to unforgettable moments (such as Hulk Hogan’s heel turn at Bash of the Beach in 1996) and helped create new stars. 

That’s exactly what a stable, any good stable, was able to do. It could shake things up, make things interesting and provide the WWE with an avenue to skyrocket mid-carders to superstardom and create storylines that will be talked about for years to come. 

History says that’s what stables accomplish. 

WCW wouldn’t have been nearly as popular as it was in the mid-to-late 1990s without Hogan and the NWO, Triple H wouldn’t be the star he became without DX, and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin may never have become the WWE’s top baby face if it wasn’t for his feud with Bret Hart and the New Hart Foundation. The list goes on and on and on. 

But one thing is clear: Stables can make tremendous impacts on professional wrestling that wouldn’t happen any other way. 

They lead to heel turns and face turns, epic feuds and rivalries, jaw-dropping moments and riveting TV. Well, at least they used to. 

Now? The stable is something that exists only in the past, a distant memory that we can only hope will come back.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring orTwitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.