Now that ECW has gone and passed and the WWE has decided to go with the all-rookie route for their NXT students, the question arises as to what to do with the talent dispersed from the former third brand. Both RAW and Smackdown already have more than a few wrestlers, some talented and some not as much, who don't have anything to do and are lucky to get a cameo spot in a backstage segment or a match on Superstars. Even though there are about 12 guys coming in from ECW tops, it's still going to cause an overflow effect where more guys are going to end up lost in the shuffle.
Of course, even without creating another third brand or making Superstars its own show, the WWE could solve this problem of overpopulation quite easily without going on another talent hatcheting that would make Lizzie Borden proud. It could get guys face time, an in for multi-man tag matches and even a rub by getting a chance to meaningfully face off against an upper-card guy for a reason. They could start forming some honest-to-God stables.
Yeah, I know what you're saying. The WWE fucked up probably the easiest stable to book in Legacy. Their track record with stables hasn't been all that great since the first pass at a more-than-two-man DX. Well, I'm not saying that those fears should be discarded. In fact, I really don't think the WWE knows how to properly book a stable anymore except by accident. However, there are way too many talented guys on the roster right now to just have guys get future endeavored willy nilly.
Take for example William Regal and Ezekiel Jackson. They're rumored to be going to Smackdown, so why not have Regal recruit some new guys for a new, even more Ruthless Roundtable? Imagine a fearsome fivesome featuring Regal, Jackson, Mike Knox, Tyson Kidd and David Hart Smith? Or how about CM Punk recruiting some new blood into his Straight Edge Society, like a currently directionless and bland-as-a-face Vladimir Kozlov? Evan Bourne gravitating towards Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust and that threesome attaching itself to, say, John Cena in his war against Vince McMahon's new Corporation, featuring Batista, Sheamus, Carlito and *shudder* Vance Archer?
Or since they don't feel like the Dudebusters really need mentoring, how about grouping them with Zack Ryder in a stable led by The Miz? This stable is a key example to something that kinda bugs me about the WWE roster. There are plenty of characters right now who are similar to each other at best and redundant at worst. You have cocky asshole Miz, cocky Long Island asshole Ryder and cocky fist-pumping assholes Trent Baretta and Caylen Croft (not to mention bleach blonde cocky asshole Dolph Ziggler, but let's not overstuff all our stables here). Aren't these guys screaming to be grouped together? I mean, if they're going to be that lame and uncreative with their character archetypes, they might as well group them together and make something useful out of them.
When you have guys grouped together, it gives feuds more variety without having to blow your wads on giving away matchups (which they seem to do anyway). Giving guys good reason to team together is never a bad thing, especially when it comes to putting multi-man tag team matches together. It can also give rubs to lower card guys just by association. Tell me that the Dudebusters couldn't benefit from getting some of the excess heat that Miz generates to warm their cold bones, and I'll laugh in your face and tell you that they'd get boos by following Miz out to the ring. There's a reason why old school promoters leaned on the stable and why guys like Arn Anderson are treasured as legends despite the fact that they barely cracked US Title level.
Honestly, with the number of guys, talented wrestlers that the WWE has, they need to go this route if they're not going to have a third brand for their low-carders and select vets to populate. NXT throws a wrench in the system, and now, it looks like a bunch of guys are going to get cut because they don't know how to book a stable when it's really the easiest thing in the world to do. Hopefully, they take my advice, because alliances are one of the things that makes wrestling great.
