WWE 24/7 - Roundtable Show - Best Groups/Factions Recap - October 6, 2008

I thought I’d give a little recap of the newest WWE 24/7 Legends of Wrestling roundtable that recently aired on 24/7. This is the first show with the new panel which consists of Jim Ross, Mick Foley, Ric Flair, and Tazz while being hosted by Gene Okerlund. The topic of the show was about factions/groups in wrestling. No surprise that The Four Horsemen are put over huge on this show and that would have been true even without Flair on the show. First, I have to say that having Flair and Foley sitting side by side on this panel was intriguing considering their recent past. Each is asked to name their top three favorite factions ever. Foley goes with The Varsity Club (Tazz actually brought them up as one of his favorite groups so Foley played off of that), Hot Stuff International, and The Horsemen. Flair picked The Freebirds, Evolution, and The Horsemen. Flair really put over The Freebirds huge saying how they were like The Horsemen with just wanting to get over and make the product better. They all put over Hayes for bringing theme music into wrestling with World Class as Flair said that Hayes was way before his time on that idea. Tazz went with The Horsemen, The Freebirds, and the original DX. JR picked The Horsemen, original DX, and The Hart Foundation of 1997. JR put over how great The Hart Foundation was saying how they had great in ring workers and talkers and then had the sizzle on the steak when they added Brian Pillman. The nWo was obviously a major topic on the show. Mixed reactions to them which is common among many in wrestling. Foley put them over huge saying how they really helped bring the WWE to the next level cause the nWo elevated WCW forcing WWE to change their ways to compete. They all agreed that it got way out of hand with Gene joking to Flair that the two of them were the only ones in WCW at the time that weren’t in the group. Jericho actually talks in his book saying the best thing that ever happened to him was not being a part of the nWo. Flair has nothing good to say about the nWo. Flair said that the difference between the nWo and The Horsemen was that the nWo had a lot of average guys that beat everyone 300 times in 2 years. Flair joked that The Horsemen never won matches and always were looking to make the others look better. He said they’d lose and then show up the next night acting like it never happened. Flair also talked about how the nWo was great for business initially but said overall that they were the worst thing to ever happen to the business cause he feels their backstage takeover put the company out of business. Flair said that factions should help the company but that they were on their own agendas. They all agreed that the nWo was great at the beginning but then got way out of control. One topic that was discussed was about how groups should always make single stars when the group breaks up. They talked a lot about DX and JR called Shawn Michaels the point guard of the group while Triple H was able to elevate. JR also talked of Gunn and Road Dogg being average in the ring but that they were brought up to the next level with X-Pac being the guy to stir things up on camera. JR said that DX was allowed to be all over the place with their creativity unlike today where talent isn’t allowed to get out of the box that they’re supposed to stay in. Flair said he wished that The Horsemen had the level of production value and free reign that DX had cause he said that they would have been way bigger. Foley’s example of a star breaking out from a group was The Nation Of Domination with Farooq being the leader but then The Rock being the one that jumped ahead out of it. Foley also talked about The Brood saying that he always tells stars to be ready to jump ahead if they get an unexpected chance on TV. He spoke of a night where Gangrel was stumbling on his lines and the mic ended up in Edge’s hands and he did this great promo that helped Edge get further ahead. Flair said that the same happened with Evolution talking about Orton and Batista being the ones to break out into singles careers. Flair joked that if he was still 35 years old that Evolution would still be around. Flair talked about The Horsemen being a group that had strong in ring performers and talkers saying that any of them could go forward strong after the group disbanded. When Foley asked Flair who he considered to be THE FOUR of the Horsemen, he said himself, Arn, Tully, and Barry Windham. Foley jokingly asked about Paul Roma and Flair said he wasn’t a true Horsemen and also threw Sid’s name in as well on not being a true Horsemen. Flair mentioned about how the four of them that he mentioned would look to top each other with matches. They always wanted to have the best matches out of the group. The panel was also asked to name their top worst factions ever and this had some interesting answers and stories. Gene mentioned The West Texas Rednecks. Foley mentioned The Dungeon Of Doom (he said that the group never formed any kind of chemistry) and then said that the worst ever was The Union which consisted of himself, Vince McMahon, Test, and others. Yeah, The Union was bad so I agree with Foley there. Tazz mentioned The Cabinet which consisted of JBL, Orlando Jordan, and Amy Weber. He said he knew it was bad cause he had the job of color commentator every week trying to make that sound good. Flair to no surprise says the nWo. JR mentions the No Limit Soldiers (he said that it made him embarrassed to be a wrestling fan and made him want to flip to local on the 8’s on the Weather Channel), The Oddities, and The Spirit Squad. JR said that The Spirit Squad was a group of guys who were too young and too green having to compete with people that they weren’t ready to compete with yet. Tazz defends the guys in the group saying that he was sitting in on the meeting when the idea of the male cheerleaders was pitched to the guys. Tazz said that they had a look in their eyes of “oh no” when it was mentioned but went the company way of saying that would be a great idea. Ha ha. They all mentioned that the most important thing with groups is chemistry. If there is chemistry off TV between the group, then it is going to be better on camera as well. Some other notes from the show. Ric Flair sure isn't shy of taking shots at Shane Douglas. The reason that Shane was brought up was cause Tazz was asked about the groups that ECW had and he said that The Triple Threat was their biggest group. Flair joked with Tazz saying that he knew that Tazz had to want to be a Horsemen when he was growing up. Tazz said of course but you wouldn’t take a Horsemen from Brooklyn. Ha ha. Flair told a great story about running up a $4,000 bill at the Marriott in Baltimore with The Horsemen and how his credit card bounced and flew like Michael Jordan across the room. It was also the biggest money making night in the history of that particular hotel cause they had 1,000 people there. Basically, Flair told everyone on the air in a promo that they were staying there and invited everyone so that many fans showed up in the lobby. JR tells of the night that he was out with The Horsemen and how he met his future wife that night. I was disappointed that The Dangerous Alliance got left off of the discussion. This was a fun show to watch and the next subject for the roundtable will be “the most important wrestling moments”. That will debut later down the line on WWE 24/7. Here is a clip that WWE has posted from the Groups show.