Armchair Booking: Faction Warfare In WWE

Faction warfare has always been a long-running trope of professional wrestling. WCW, TNA, New Japan Pro Wrestling, all promotions that have had a crack at producing investing faction warfare storylines within their weekly programming. The most recent, and arguably most successful innovation, has been that of The Bullet Club and its many incarnations overseas.

The Bullet Club has evolved over the years but has maintained the same thuggish attitude brought over by the revered gaijin wrestlers. Having been led by some of the most famous independent stars in history, the group has remained fresh throughout its storied history and brought many new eyes to the product. Having fingers in pretty much every pie in New Japan, there’s no surprise that The Bullet Club have found themselves in heated wars with fellow factions like Chaos, Suzuki-Gun and Bread Club.

For those fans who grew up watching the battles between The N.W.O and their many sister-teams, they felt right at home with the faction warfare going down on Japanese soil. Naturally, it became the talk of the wrestling world and many once-unknown wrestlers had quickly become critically-acclaimed.

Of course whenever something outside of the WWE is the hottest thing in wrestling, WWE have to do their best to imitate. Some would argue that it’s the sincerest form of flattery, but others might consider it a poor (or very rich) man’s interpretation of it.

A few months back, WWE re-formed The Club with AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson. Now going by the name of ‘The O.C’, an obvious reference to their Bullet Club roots, they are quickly becoming one of the most dominant acts on Monday Night Raw. Although its taken some time for The O.C. to gain traction, it seems that they’re heading towards a hostile takeover.

Even though I’m sure we can all surmise that the WWE’s version of The Bullet Club will be an incredibly tame depiction of Jay White’s NJPW clan, it could be quite fun to see The O.C. do battle with other factions underneath the WWE umbrella. The Undisputed Era, British Strong Style and maybe even some new stables put together by some of WWE’s rising stars could all pose a threat to Styles’ crew.

Let’s run down some potential scenarios where faction warfare could become one of the biggest features in WWE programming.

 

The Undisputed Club

Some Bullet Club trivia for you, Adam Cole was once in the running for leadership on Japanese soil. During the initial days of The Bullet Club civil war, Adam Cole was usurped by The Young Bucks, removing Cole from the Bullet Club and replacing him with their newest member, ‘The Villain’ Marty Scurll. This was really Cole’s last hurrah as a member of the independent scene, before jumping ship to NXT.

There’s a lot of unresolved conflict between Cole and The Bullet Club. Considering the likes of Scurll, The Bucks and Cody Rhodes are very much committed to other promotions, I doubt we’ll ever see Cole get his redemption on The Elite. What we can see though is him channel his hatred of all things ‘Too Sweet’ through a faction war between his Undisputed Era and The O.C.

Even though Cole and AJ Styles had separate stints under the Bullet Club banner, there’s still a thread running through both of their careers. Not only are they now faction leaders within WWE, but they’re also former Bullet Club members and arguably two of the hottest stars in wrestling today.

Imagine the absolute hype if The Undisputed Era were to finally be called up onto the main roster, they sought to eliminate The O.C. and establish themselves as the one true, dominant faction in WWE. Adam Cole would naturally fit into an exciting singles feud with AJ while O’Reilly and Fish could put together some insane tag matches with Gallows & Anderson.

This could easily become one of the hottest rivalries of the year, should WWE wish to tear the Era away from NXT on Fox.

 

The British Invasion

No, not Nick Aldis & Doug Williams.

British Strong Style have become the most low-key impressive faction on the planet, dominating NXT UK and the majority of worldwide promotions they’ve been booked in since their rise to fame in 2017. Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate and Trent Seven have all settled into their respective branches of NXT but haven’t really had the same presence as some of the other factions have in WWE.

The three British natives could easily gain traction on WWE’s main programming if they were given a shot. Perhaps bringing them in to pick up their popular feud with The Undisputed Era on US NXT could go a long way in presenting them as one of the next big things in WWE. Their matches at the Royal Albert Hall and subsequent TakeOver events were widely regarded as some of the best wrestling matches of 2018 — I’m sure nobody would have any qualms with them having a few more sequels down the line.

Another viable option is of course The O.C., should the lads ever make the jump up to the main roster. Quite frankly, I’d throw so much money at a potential barn-burner between AJ Styles and ‘The Bruiserweight’, but I don’t see British Strong Style severing their ties to NXT anytime soon. Dunne especially has a lot left to accomplish as part of the rebooted NXT TV and both Tyler Bate and Trent Seven have big things coming their way on the UK brand. So why not bring some faction warfare to them with the strong potential they have in developmental?

Gallus have got off the ground with their recent NXT UK Tag Title win and are in the process of recruiting some new members to their stable. It seems that they’ve set their sights on Ilja Dragunov but many suspect that we’ll eventually see fellow Scotsman Noam Dar join their ranks. Likewise with WALTER’s Imperium, there’s plenty of opportunities for European superstars to jump ship to NXT UK and bolster their already impressive squad of hard-hitters. Cesaro, Sheamus, Rusev, all potential additions to the Imperium faction.

A heated battle for supremacy could easily break-out between all three stables, giving NXT UK a chance to make headlines by experimenting with New Japan’s tried and tested theme of group dynamics.

The BritWres scene is bursting with other factions that could easily find themselves signed by NXT UK. Schadenfreude have collectively become some of the biggest names on the scene: Chris Brookes, Aussie Open and Lucky Kid have all given a shot of adrenaline to the independent scene and definitely proven themselves to be an entertaining faction, to say the least.

Not that I see the Schadenfreude stepping away from the indies anytime soon, but they would be a perfect fit for the turf-war that could unfold on Wednesday nights, dualling with the likes of British Strong Style, Imperium and Gallus.

 

The Balor Club

Finn Balor has forever teased producing his own incarnation of ‘The Club’ in WWE. Since his arrival in 2015, rumours have been thrown around regarding the creative team writing him into various feuds that would feature him tagging with former BC OGs Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. While that did happen for a brief period last year, it never really gained any traction and eventually just stopped.

Now that Gallows & Anderson have re-formed The O.C. and Finn is off reliving his NXT glory days, could this ever come back around for a re-run? Well, probably not just yet, but I imagine WWE won’t be able to keep their fingers off the trigger for too long.

Finn Balor joining The O.C. or forming his own rival Bullet Club tribute band has been amongst the many theories thrown about since his brief hiatus over the summer. The feud between him and Styles has been put on hold so many times now that it’s almost becoming one of WWE’s most mouth-watering feuds, bringing in two opposing set of henchmen to help expand their singles bout into one of the most heated faction wars of the modern era could go a long way in letting this rivalry live up to the hype.

Obviously Gallows & Anderson have shown their allegiance to both leaders in the past, but perhaps there could be a little dissension between the two while the two dads fight over who’s keeping the kids on weekends. There’s also opportunity here for new names to be brought into the Bullet Club fold, perhaps The Revival or The Usos could be drafted in to form WWE’s final incarnation of the ever-popular Bullet Club.

Either way, this could be a fantastic series of matches between two rival factions, should WWE look to go all-out with the chaos that is turf wars.

So there you have our thoughts on how to put together faction warfare in WWE. Do you like the sound of what we’ve got going on? Or do you have some other teams in mind? Let us know in the comments section below.