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One of the most significant WWE storyline developments since SummerSlam 2019 came on the August 19 episode of Raw when The Revival joined forces with Randy Orton to attack all three members of The New Day.
Six days earlier, the makeshift trio picked up a statement-making victory over Kofi Kingston, Big E & Xavier Woods on SmackDown Live, but it was unclear whether they would go on to remain allies in the future.
Now, following Monday’s vicious attack on The New Day and another segment involving the villainous trio and Kofi Kingston on SmackDown Live, it looks as though WWE’s decision-makers have a long-term plan to keep Orton, Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder together.
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As we have seen in recent years in WWE, this kind of booking can either lead to a dominant faction being formed or, more often than not, the relationship between unlikely allies soon derails and everybody quickly forgets about them.
In this article, let’s take a look at three makeshift factions that failed and two that succeeded.
#5 Failed: The Social Outcasts
Adam Rose, Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel provided distractions at ringside to help Heath Slater defeat Dolph Ziggler on an episode of Raw in January 2016.
At the time, the quartet had struggled for television time as singles Superstars, so they became The Social Outcasts and planned to work together to take out their “inner-anger” on their opponents.
Wins and losses do not define success and failure in WWE, but it is fair to say that nobody was going to take The Social Outcasts seriously when they were being booked to lose on a weekly basis.
In fairness to the group, they won two of their first three televised matches. However, between January 2016 and their final encounter in July 2016, various tag-team combinations within the faction lost a total of 18 matches in a row on Raw, SmackDown, Main Event and Superstars.
Towards the end of their time together, Rose was granted his release by WWE, which ultimately led to The Social Outcasts' split a few weeks later.
#4 Succeeded: The Riott Squad
One of the biggest complaints about WWE’s women’s division between 2016-17 was the lack of depth in both rosters on Raw and SmackDown Live.
In late 2017, the main roster had a shake-up with its female talent when Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville formed an alliance with Paige on Raw and the new trio of Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan became a faction on the blue brand.
Known as The Riott Squad, the three women had previously featured as singles competitors in NXT but they had never teamed up in a televised match in what was then called WWE’s ‘developmental’ brand.
Although the villainous trio failed to win their major rivalries against the likes of Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair & Naomi and The Bella Twins & Ronda Rousey, they still appeared regularly on WWE television and established themselves as prominent members of the roster during their 19-month run between November 2017 and April 2019.
WWE separated The Riott Squad in the 2019 Superstar Shake-Up, with Morgan moving to SmackDown Live, but it would not be a surprise to see them reunite one day.
#3 Failed: The League of Nations
The WrestleMania 32 storyline between Triple H and Roman Reigns began with Sheamus cashing in his Money In The Bank contract on “The Big Dog” at Survivor Series 2015 to end his WWE Championship reign after just 5 minutes and 15 seconds.
At the time, Reigns had been offered a place in The Authority by Triple H. When he refused, HHH and the rest of his villainous group, including Vince McMahon, repeatedly tried to prevent the former Shield member from reclaiming the WWE Championship.
In a bid to hold Reigns down, Sheamus joined forces with three other heels on the roster – Alberto Del Rio, Rusev and Wade Barrett – and the makeshift quartet did everything they could to make life difficult for WWE’s top good guy.
Eventually, the storyline became all about Triple H and Reigns, while Barrett often played the role of manager as Del Rio, Rusev & Sheamus competed in relatively meaningless tag team matches.
On paper, this might have seemed like a good idea. In reality, it felt like all four League of Nations members were being wasted once Sheamus lost his title to Reigns.
#2 Succeeded: The Shield
Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose burst onto the main-roster scene at Survivor Series 2012 and immediately became involved in some of the most prominent storylines on Raw and SmackDown.
In 2013, all three men won titles for the first time at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, where Rollins & Reigns won the Tag Team titles from Team Hell No and Ambrose defeated Kofi Kingston for the United States Championship, and they went on to feature in many of the best WWE matches of the year.
The following year, Rollins turned his back on The Shield by hitting both of his partners with a steel chair on Raw in June 2014, kick-starting a two-year run that would see all three members of the group hold the WWE Championship as singles Superstars.
WWE’s numerous attempts to reunite the trio in 2017, 2018 and 2019 failed for different reasons, but it cannot be denied that their time together as “The Hounds of Justice” was an overwhelming success.
#1 Failed: 3MB
Looking back, some of the matches and segments involving 3MB members Drew McIntyre, Heath Slater and Jinder Mahal between 2012-14 were actually somewhat entertaining.
But, when you consider that Mahal went on to become WWE Champion in 2017 and that many people now perceive McIntyre as a realistic World Champion one day, it is baffling that WWE’s decision-makers put the three men in a comedy faction and turned them into perennial losers almost every time they appeared on television.
The 3MB idea was all down to Slater but, as he revealed on Edge & Christian’s Pod of Awesomeness in May 2019, he wanted them to be a “cool” faction and not a group that nobody took seriously.
Interestingly, Slater also mentioned that his original pitch was to have Dean Ambrose, EC3 and Fandango alongside him, but he was given Mahal and McIntyre instead!
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