The Straight Edge Society. Was it really all that?

Hashtag_HEEL

Recently I've been watching/listening to a lot of CM Punk's interviews and noticed that he's quite bitter about the way that WWE "Bastardised" the SES. He believes that in their biggest blunders the list goes:
1. The WCW invasion
2. The Straight Edge Society

That's why I was wondering what was everyone's thoughts on the SES? Do you think its a top 5 faction? What were your favourite moments?
Was it really as good as Punk believes?


Personally I thought it was awesome up until the feud with the Big Show and the whole "Serena has a secret" story.

If it were Triple H's faction , it would still be going right now. It got nowhere near its potential.

J. Marston

Didn't seem like anything special to me. I can't even remember the guy on the far left of that picture.

Penn

J. Marston wrote: »

Didn't seem like anything special to me. I can't even remember the guy on the far left of that picture.

Joey Mercury.

I thought the SES were good, but Punk himself was better. He simply didn't need them and didn't utilise them to be any sort of real threat. Punk could have had the exact same gimmick and it would have worked just as well. Though of course, it's hard to see if that might have improved if they'd been given more of a chance.

Turtyturd

The best thing to come out of it was Punk's t-shirt from that period.

Kinda sums up Punk's notion of self importance though that he would compare it to the Invasion storyline. If anything I would consider his comeback following MITB 2011 to be a bigger f*ck up/letdown.

chopperbyrne

It could have been great, but for a heel stable to work, they need titles. In Kayfabe terms, they're probably the least successful heel stable of all time.

Punk should have been WHC at the time and have all the top babyfaces chase the title for months before he was finally beaten.

Mercury should have been brought in sooner and let him and Gallows be the tag champs with Serena being womens champ.

Lord TSC

Happy birthday....to....you.....

smellmepower

Bit of a meh faction,mainly because Punk was the only memorable person in it.Can't remember Festus or Mercury doing anything of note and Serina's only talent was being bald and having massive knockers.

Nowhere near an NWO,Four Horseman,DX or Evolution.

Ape Lincoln

It seemed a bit edgier from what WWE had been doing for quite a few years. If you're going by his comments on the DVD documentary there's a fair bit of kayfabe thrown in that one. Like 'I only re-signed my contract that day for real'. Lol.

Anyway, it was good but not fantastic. Midcard factions can be hard to pull off.

Hashtag_HEEL

Ape Lincoln wrote: »

If you're going by his comments on the DVD documentary there's a fair bit of kayfabe thrown in that one. Like 'I only re-signed my contract that day for real'. Lol.

I wasn't really going by the documentary, it was more podcasts and convention panels.
I thought though keeping Mayfair in the documentary was a nice touch in keeping some magic for people regarding the show!

Chagan

I can kind of see what Punk is saying. SES was an interesting concept but it was booked terribly. Punk himself was on fire at the time, the whole Charles Manson/Jesus thing suited him perfectly. His promos in the RR and with Mysterio were fantastic. Having him continually lose to Mysterio ruined a lot of the momentum the group had. Big Show squashing the entire group was the final nail.

It was a waste of potential for sure but not on an Invasion level.

Unfulfilled potential. Story of WWE for the last decade.

Riddle101

It had an awful lot of potential to be the best stable of the last 5 years or so. But true to WWE nature they ruined it, just like they did Nexus. They started out great, Punk got a great boost from his feud with Jeff Hardy and it just kicked off from there. When the SES began, Punk did some great promo work and it was one of the most entertaining things of Smackdown. But that's all that SES really got out of it. A handful of good promos, and Punk's character getting some character development. Other then that, it was eventually ruined. Punk went on a losing streak, and was mistreated.

That being said of course, this all helped Punk become the star he was today. So I guess some good came out of the mistreatment of SES.

As for the other members, well they were just cannon fodder at the end of the day.

DM_7

Punk was brilliant in that role.

The rest were not. Punk had some of his mates rather than people that WWE wanted to do well which held them back.

rovert

A resounding yes he you watch the house show footage of them around that period.

^ Prefers the B-Sides

Seriously though they got mega heat when they did their full thing.

SirDelboy18

Considering how well Legacy were doing a few years back, and the fact that SES was a better stable IMO, with edgy promos and some genuinely entertaining moments, I think this was badly messed up.

I thought Legacy were pretty good but I always was far more intrigued by the SES - I feel like they were horribly underutilised, should have been WHC for sure and not been buried in their two feuds that I recall anyway, Rey and Big Show. It wasn't like either of those two needed the wins.

bobby_says_hi

They had potential but the ball was just dropped on them all. I have no idea why they put the Tag Team titles on Big Show & Miz instead of them. If they had feuded with the Hart Dynasty...would have been good for Natalya and Serena since you know they could both actually wrestle. The SES just lost a lot when Serena got released and they got that stupid feud with Big Show. They pulled the plug on them too early

DM_7

Loved this.

Omackeral

Joseph Mercury. That's gas. Other than that I never cared for Gallows or Joey though. Punk mentoring D.Young on NXT at the time was golden however, as we was trying to be the South Beach Party Boy while Punk was not impressed

On the plus side, we now have the Wyatt Family.....

GTR63

Love the way someone gave it a 1 knowing other factions sucked worse.
I liked Gallows and Serena in it. Doc made so much sense after his lame Festus gimmick who was 'poisoned' by medication and was a good heavy. Serena was a classic case of somebody who bought into the direction Punk was going.

gnfnrhead

If you're a faction and you get paired with Big Show, don't go buying new faction specific gear, you'll hardly get to use it.

Could have been bigger but it isn't the huge blunder Punk seems to think it was. Had they avoided Big Show, I think they'd have been alright.

Clemantis

They were good, but they were no Right To Censor.

krudler

I liked them, Punk says on his dvd that he got away with a lot of what they did because he was on Smackdown so probably under the radar he would have been if they were on Raw, they had monumental heat at the time. And yeah they definitely didn't have the potential fulfilled.

Rjd2

krudler wrote: »

I liked them, Punk says on his dvd that he got away with a lot of what they did because he was on Smackdown so probably under the radar he would have been if they were on Raw, they had monumental heat at the time. And yeah they definitely didn't have the potential fulfilled.

Yep, the heat they got was savage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6m4BGcEqyg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeAVVzZuTqo

bobby_says_hi

that Rey segment reminds me of something hilarious. remember later in the evening when Rey came out to attack Punk? he took off that shirt and was wearing a t-shirt underneath. except in that segment with his daughter, he's clearly not wearing a t-shirt underneath. so in the blind rage he was going through backstage, he took off the shirt, put a t-shirt on and then put the shirt back on just so he could dramatically remove it later

GTR63

Whenever I see Reys family I am reminded of that Custody of Domonic ladder match.
God I wanted Eddie to win that so bad

Mr.Saturn

A lot of what they did on TV seemed pretty neutered, and aimless, but I've watched a few bits of their house-show work at the time, and it was proper-Memphis/ECW levels of crowd-riling.

Punk was always picking that one guy/gal with the motormouth, and constantly, viciously baiting'em into jumping the rail. Just 101-stuff done with such oomph and vigour, I'd to tip my proverbial.

DM_7

Imaine how good they would have been if Heyman was around to use his political brain to select the other members.

Like how he was credited (rightly or wrongly) with the set up of the Shield, two great talents from the indies and a WWE guy in reigns. If the SES even had one guy that Vince etc were really into like reigns they would have been used much better.

Mercury and Festus were just the wrong guys for Vince and Big Johnny to want to protect and instead got fed to Show and Rey.

Manning3000

It was a great idea just needed better members and not Punks friends, as above the highlight of the society was the rumble with the promos between eliminations just genius!

Dracula88

The Straight Edge Society always reminded me of two people ( If you could even call them human beings). Charles Manson and Jim Jones.