Wilfred's Debate 2022 Semi Final 1- Nash Diesel vs kdestiny

[Badger]

WILFRED'S DEBATE 2022 SEMI FINAL 1

@Nash Diesel vs @kdestiny

BEST STABLE IN THE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

Well done gentlemen for making it to the semi-final stage! As a reward your topic is going to be more open so it is not restricted to WWE but you can choose your choice from any wrestling federation and argue it agains your opponent's. For the semi-finals, we are going to be focusing on wrestlng stables.

Your topic is to choose who you think were the best stable from any wrestling federation of your choice and argue why your choice is stronger than your opponent's. So this can be any wrestling fed not just WWE so you can use stables from others as well like WCW, ECW, ROH, NJPW, TNA, AEW etc.

RULES

- Each participant will be allowed 3 posts each with a word cap of 500 words maximum per post. This must not be exceeded.
- No editing of posts is allowed. Once it is down it is down.
- Responses must be staggered. Each participant must wait until their opponent has gone until they can post again.
- No rebuttals are allowed for the person posting after their opponent original post. Once both opening posts are down then you may rebut your opponent's choice.
- Videos, gifs, pictures etc can be used and will not count towards the word count.
- If you quote your opponent, the quote will not count towards the word count. However if you choose to cite words from an article, outside source then those words will count.
- Ties will last exactly 10 days and will be timestamped. No extensions will be allowed unless there are mitigating circumstances like for example if your opponent posts their last response very late in which case I will consider extending the tie so it can be levelled up. If all 6 posts are not in then they will be judged on what has been put down.
- For all participants and anyone posting in the discussion thread, please do not comment on the ties while they are going on.
- Once the ties have been completed, it will be down to the 3 judges to judge on who they think did best and to PM their votes to me. They will know this already but please give reasoning for your votes.

The coin toss has come up Tails so kdestiny will be going first!

Happy Debating! Any questions about your individual ties then please PM me.

[Kdestiny]

There are many ways to decide who was the best stable of all time.

Were they the best Kayfabe? Were their matches the best? Were they the most memorable?

There are many ways to determine that, but I think the thing that truly makes the best stand apart is how they are able to do together and separately in singles. That narrows things down quite a bit I feel.

Only one group has been able to stand the test of time to be successful as a unit, as singles, have memorable moments, and capture the hearts and minds of fans everywhere for the amount of time that they have.

My choice for the best stable in the history of pro wrestling…

THE… NEWWWW DAAAYYYYY



They have had so much success as a team with any combo of them holding the tag titles 11 times.

They have had singles success with two WWE title reigns and a King of the Ring victory.

They have had numerous incredible feuds among them also as singles or as a team.

Their connection with the audiences even now after 8 years still is remarkable especially when you consider the history of teams being created and split within that same time frame.

This group succeeded in spite of some weird creative and made this team their own. It has spawned one of the most memorable runs in the history of wrestling by any stable. It is hard for anyone in history to have this kind of staying power as a stable, but not even other greats like the Four Horsemen, DX, or the nWo could show that every member could have success within the group as well as on their own. Every other great group had people who played a specific part, in this group they all gelled with one another and always supported each other regardless of their alignment.

If you disagree, maybe you will FEEL THE POWERRRRRRRRR!!!!

[Nash Diesel]

What makes a great stable?


You have to make an impact. You have to not only make an impact on the fans, but your peers, the company, and the business itself. Who ultimately benefits from the stable? The fans, your peers, the company, and the business itself. We can talk about Evolution, The Ministry, the Oddities, all legendary factions but they lack what most stables have lacked for almost 26 years: Impact. Elevating the entire industry sits the baddest stable of all time. A stable who has produced incredible matches in the ring, a stable that has produced the biggest draws in pro wrestling not just today but over the last 7-8 years. A stable that has taken every name and put their ass through an announce table or worse. Three men who thrived in an era where our industry was all but written off as a soon to be forgotten piece of pop culture.


Ladies and gentlemen I bring to you Mr. Dean Ambrose. Mr. Seth Rollins. Mr. Roman Reigns.



The Shield.

[Kdestiny]

Interesting pick here.

The Shield was a stable that was basically created to succeed. Just look at how they debuted… they debuted in a World title match in a big spot. They were put in there with Team Hell No and Ryback for their first match, of course they were going to do well because the machine was behind them.

The New Day was three guys who had been floundering and were put together with a very weird story as to why and they somehow managed to make that work in spite of being behind the 8 ball to go ahead and have tag success as well as singles success.

The best singles success that the Shield had as a trio was that nothing US title reign that Dean Ambrose had and that IC title run Reigns had for a hot second.

Their success as singles, while remarkable, has happened post Shield.

The New Day continued as a unit, they never had one turning on another. They all had tag title reigns together.

While the Shield was a trio, it was Reigns and Rollins being the tag team and Ambrose as the singles.

In the New Day you have the cornerstone of the Tag division and some memorable feuds as well with the likes of the Bar, Cesaro/Kidd, the Street Profits, and maybe their greatest feud and the greatest team feud of modern WWE history in their long series against the Usos.

The Shield have some of those, but what did they do to make you truly care?

The New Day made the true connect with the crowds and moved merch at an alarming rate for a lot of their run. Each of them on the mic is good to money.

Reigns as a member of the Shield is a far cry from who he is now, Rollins wasn’t nearly as good as he is now either… there wasn’t much meat to that.

The New Day can be serious or comedic and can spar with the best of them on the mic, in the ring, in Merch…

The New Day has done what the Shield could not… they have lasted much longer and have done so without anyone turning and without getting stale. Doing this in the product nowadays is nothing short of remarkable. They deserve their success and their place as the greatest stable in wrestling history.

[Nash Diesel]

Every act Vince puts on his shows he is wanting them to succeed. The machine doesn’t guarantee success of any kind.


It’s impossible to deny New Day’s contributions when it comes to selling merch and delivering in the ring. Just like it would be impossible to ignore how much Shield moved merch and delivered in the ring.


The problem with New Day is that they wore out their welcome. The act is stale and it’s used as a crutch because the WWE for some reason can’t figure out what to do with Xavier Woods. When you talk about how people do on their own, we can definitely look at Shield v. New Day.


Dean Ambrose, thrived in WWE as a World champion and now as Moxley leads AEW as the consistent drawing main eventer. Seth Rollins, incredible run in the WWE post-Shield, multi time World champion main eventer for years. Roman Reigns. The Tribal Chief is the top draw in the business.


I don’t know if we can look at Kofi Kingston or Big E, definitely not Woods, as being on that level of the Shield members. This isn’t about cereal and trumpets, that’s cool for a midcard comedy act but again, the stable basically exists to give Xavier something of worth.




How much has a stable done for the members of New Day when they can’t seem to get out of the tag-team scene? Having a great match isn’t something exclusive to New Day. The Shield were rewriting the lackluster tag scene we grew accustomed to with The Usos, Cody/Goldust, Team Hell No, and Harper/Rowan. Classic 6-man tag matches are not in the New Day’s resume. I’ll tell you two right now that have trumped anything in wrestling since the days of World Class and that’s the matches The Shield had against The Wyatt Family and Evolution. Show me the New Day match we point to when we want to see the STABLE at it’s strongest.


Memorable moments? I guess that depends on if you were a fan of the mid 90’s cartoon WWF or if you prefer a more realistic, violent approach to your wrestling. The Rock and damn near 80% of the last 20 years of WWE getting Shield-bombed versus 3 grown men falling out of a cereal box gyrating their cocks. The Shield beat everyone and if they didn’t do it as a unit they did it individually.


The Shield’s impact gave new life to the 3-man stable that New Day thrived on. I wonder without The Shield would New Day have even existed? Think about all the trios teams that popped up after Shield debuted. New Day, PCB, Team BAD, Wyatt Family, etc. I don’t see any influence of the New Day when I watch WWE.


How many times has the WWE given the ball to a member of the New Day, or the New Day itself and built an entire company around them? Never.

[Kdestiny]

The Shield was going to succeed because they debuted in the main event of Survivor Series. The New Day had some throwaway segment.

The best New Day match would probably be either in their series against the Usos (HIAC), their series with the Bar, or their series with The Street Profits. Here’s the HIAC match if you needed reminding.



If your argument is that the Shield as a trio set up more success for all future trios then the first of everything is the best. That just simply isn’t true.

the Shield had great matches, The New Day did as well. The New Day has had additional success even outside of the wrestling world with Woods and his UUDD channel and his gaming show G4TV.

The Shield beat everyone in what, two years? Maybe? Then the breakup.

You can call the New Day stale, but every single time they come out the crowds are excited to see them along with knowing that they will be in store for something great.

Half of your argument about the Shield is about the members of the Shield… when they were no longer in the Shield…

If we were taking arguments based on what the members did outside of the group then there are many other options we could’ve gone with. That’s not what we are arguing here otherwise we could’ve chosen the nWo or the Main Event Mafia. I am talking about the New Day together. You are arguing for the Shield but not as the Shield.

Hell, your argument about the Shield setting up future trios could be used against you as they faced Evolution just before breaking up, something the New Day has never done by the way.

How about when the New Day interacted with Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels, and Stone Cold at Mania 32? That was a really fun moment.

What is the greatest moment the Shield had at WrestleMania? Defeating the New Age Outlaws and Kane? Wow… that’s big time there… oh wait, that was at WM 30 and not WM 15.

I named a match where the New Day were strongest… what is a promo where the Shield was strongest?

The New Day have the rap battle with the Usos, the moment where Big E ate Edge and Christians kazoo, and don’t forget the introduction of their own cereal. The Shield didn’t have that.

The Shield had these matches and moments, but the New Day had them too and I would argue are more memorable than the ones the Shield had. I remember their matches with the Wyatt’s being good but I don’t remember much about the build.

It’s hard to judge the New Days influence because they are still going all of this time later. I feel like that longevity, their tag success, and their singles success while still remaining together pushes them all the way to the top of every best stable list ever.

That and they’re too much fun… it’s the little things sometimes.

[Nash Diesel]

To quote the GOAT, the cream always rises to the top. Like I said, the machine doesn’t guarantee victory.


Again, where are the matches that involve all 3 members of New Day that we look to when we want to showcase how great this stable is? You keep talking about how good the New Day are when it’s 2 of them, what about all 3? New Day=greatest tag-team of all time? You’ve sold me on that. Greatest stable?


New Day have been around a very long time as you keep pointing out. Shield were still together when some of these stables started popping up so why didn’t Shield need another 5-10 years together to influence the business, the company, and wrestlers? How long were the nWo around before they made an impact? How about 4 Horsemen? How about DX? Sounds like the names you dropped would’ve been better than a glorified tag-team.


Let’s talk about Mania. The most important show ever in wrestling. Mania 29 and 30, we didn’t have New Day but the Shield defeated 2 teams stacked with legends, one was a squash. Mania 31, New Day are on the prelims. 2/3 Shield members are in the main event. Mania 32, New Day are doing the job in a meaningless 6-man while Ambrose is working Lesnar and Roman is winning the gold from Trips in the main event. While New Day were hosting Mania 33, Roman Reigns was headlining, Seth Rollins was beating legendary Triple H, and Ambrose was IC champ. Mania 34 New Day are doing the job in under 6 minutes, Roman is headlining with Lesnar, and Seth won the IC title. New Day have never won a match at Mania and only 1 of the members have Mania victories and that’s Kofi.


Yes, half my argument is about how the members of Shield took that success and turned it into individual success. They also reformed the stable and dominated, going out on a win in their last match ever against 3 top guys.


The Shield has continued to evolve, elevate, and own the mountain whereas New Day have regressed considerably from fun loving midcard trios with a bunch of forgettable tag title reigns and feuds, to basically fodder for whatever upcoming tag-team the WWE wants to hopefully get over. You can’t say that about the guys in The Shield. The top 2 wrestling companies in the world are lead by 2 of the 3 members.




New Day are like Chris Jericho with his 9 IC title reigns and you can’t really remember anything of significance he did. After the 5th-6th time of putting that new talent over, the shine was gone. Part of that is also because prior to New Day these 3 men were not really seen as anything beyond the IC title themselves whereas The Shield hit the ground running and haven’t gone backwards since.


PS-Better entrance. Better music.

[Badger]

ROUND OVER
@Mazer @Psycho666Soldier @3puppies please PM your votes to me.

[Badger]

RESULTS

JUDGE 3PUPPIES

A couple of great choices here. I was convinced when I saw the category pop up that we'd maybe see DGeneration X, the Hart Foundation, NWO, the Heenan Family, the Four Horsemen, or maybe the Bloodline come up for consideration. I was surprised that both debaters chose 3 man groups, as when I think of a stable, I usually think it needs 4.

But Kdestiny comes out strong with his choice of the New Day. He not only made the great choice, but he skillfully laid out the parameters of the discussion, saying that "of all time" criteria means the group must have success as a unit, and as singles, with memorable moments, and meet the test of longevity

Nash uses his first post to talk about what makes a great stable, and tries to change the discussion to what the group has produced. His choice of the SHIELD certainly meets that, but he kind of lost me when talking about them as having impacted the business. Because, the impact of the group was not something easily appreciated when they were together as a faction.

I couldn't put this together until kdestiny pointed out "Their success as singles, while remarkable, has happened post Shield" in his first rebuttal. Kdestiny was a master debater in his second post, as he amplified his own choice while hammering the flaw in Nash's choice.

Nash was not as strong in his next post, trying to claim that the whole reason for the New Day was to find something for Woods. Nash Ending on "How many times has the WWE given the ball to a member of the New Day, or the New Day itself and built an entire company around them? Never" was simply not true, as all of us who enjoyed Kofimania can attest to.

I would argue that the last two posts by both competitors was basically even, with maybe a slight edge to Nash for including the awesomeness of the Shield music.

This was a lot of fun reading, but IMHO, kdestiny has won this.

JUDGE PSYCHO666SOLDIER

kdestiny has a solid start with an admirable position. He's pairing the longevity and success of The New Day with the fact that all three have proven to be successful and vital on their own. The opening post feels like it's just getting warmed up. Not a wallop, but everything he says is true and qualifying, which I'm expecting will be expanded in later posts.

I think Nash comes out with a good opening post that acts as a counter in choice in general, as on the field of impact and individual contributions, I don't know if there are many other great choices outside of The Shield and The New Day. I also think focusing the impact they have throughout the whole industry, from individual companies to the fans, sets up a potentially monster argument. It's a bit of a waste to not utilize more of the word count, but I think kdestiny's used the full count while saying about the same amount of meaninfgul arguments.

Nash trying to boil New Day down to something that exists to give Xavier something of worth seems a bit near-sighted(probably change this word). That said, he makes some home-run points when highlighting that The New Day struggle to grow out of the tag team scene. Like he said, The Shield really redefined the tag scene and made WWE 6-man matches a spectacle. And hammering this argument with saying they've had more legendary moments as a full stable than New Day ever has was clutch. Even going as far to say that without The Shield, The New Day wouldn't have existed, and this is a pretty compelling point when he lists off all the trio stables that cropped up after The Shield's debut. For me, this is something kdestiny has to come back strong against.

I think kdestiny has something worth latching on to when he talks about the crowd reaction to New Day, effectively shutting down the "stale" argument as a matter of opinion of one person. And I think there's merit in the idea that New Day have longevity and have accomplished great things as a stable, whereas much of The Shield's greatest accomplishments came after the fact. But to be honest, I don't think his other counters really hit. I wasn't really convinced that them breaking up after the match with Evolution was somehow a bad thing about their inspiring future trios. I also barely remember the Mania 32 moment, so on the battlefield of "Better WrestleMania moments," at best, I'd consider it a tie. I think not focusing on Kofi and Big E's accomplishments AS a part of a group was a missed opportunity here, as Kofi's win is one of the biggest WrestleMania moments of all time, and it counts as a WrestleMania moment. On top of that, I didn't really find the other moments he painted as memorable to be that memorable. He says New Day had arguably more memorable matches and moments, but it doesn't feel like he has many concrete examples that back it up.

In comparison, Nash really nails his final post. kdestiny never countered the point about great matches that involved all three New Day, which Nash immediately brings back up. And then talking about how much influence The Shield have in a much smaller amount of time just really resonated, because even if you ignore their post-Shield accomplishments, they did a lot as a stable, all things Nash has trotted out. Whereas kdestiny mostly had promo segments/moments for things they did as a group. And then running down the comparison of what New Day were doing at WrestleMania in comparison to what Shield members were doing really honed in on the lack of great moments New Day had at WrestleMania, especially in comparison. I do think he's a bit dismissive of what The New Day have accomplished in the last few years by saying they've had a bunch of forgettable title reigns and feuds, but to his credit, kdestiny didn't do much to disprove this, with the main strong pont in New Day's favor being the feud with the Usos - which was great, but I felt like destiny could have honed in on more than just that. Also, as small as it is, better entrance and better music is true.

Yeah, I think this ultimately comes down to a matter of consistency. I get what kdestiny was getting at by arguing that The Shield's biggest accomplishments came after the fact, but I think he focused too much on this and didn't really do much after the first two posts to trump up what The New Day did accomplish as a stable, whereas Nash kept hitting homeruns in both boosting his choice and shutting down kdestiny's

Nash Diesel

JUDGE MAZER

One more banger of a tie.

So, let’s get straight to it

Kdestiny came in strong. Clearly stated thesis, but at first wondered why he decided that separate singles success was as high as some of the other criteria he listed (note:he did resolve this for me later). The New Day is a great choice. Good run through of credentials (tenure will be key). Conclusion loops back well into the thesis, and helps establish why New Day vs. other teams. A solid start for kd.

Nash’s first paragraph is very strong. His structure seems to be getting stronger as he goes. Clearly established criteria. There’s an advantage of picking the shield, because all readers know their history. However at this point, I was wondering what he was going to do with their overall time together in the analysis.

Kdestiny’s 2nd post is him busting out an assault. Basically all his shots land. He ties things back into how they were as stables, and busts out nice chronology points. He does a good job establishing how versatile the new day was together, and hits the tenure points again nicely. He’s able to keep the pressure on, and still build his team (without needing to spend as many words to do it), due to the effectiveness of his counters. My main critique here is that Nash’s impact argument thesis is largely unchallenged.

Nash starts out on the attack and stays there as well. He goes right after the tenure point, with challenges on the act being stale. Nash’s most interesting point is contrasting the separation of tag and title with moments as a threesome. This is a good counter for the New Day’s runs. There was a small part of it that I think resonates a little less due to how often the New Day was together in those moments. But the overall point about reintroducing the faction vs. the Tag Team is very strong.

Kdestiny quickly dispatches some of the points about memorability, and wastes little word count to do it. I do feel like his ‘machine’ attacks resonate less, as his main points have been about success during this time. The initial point are sound. Not that they’re ineffective, I think they needed more development to go from jabs to knock-out blows. The Evolution point is a great challenge. And again comes back to time in faction vs. time out. Really strong work on the middle part here.

Nash starts with a reminder about his earlier machine counter, and then goes straight back into the 3 people moments. He ties his tenure counter back into this original thesis. The mania bit, while it did play into kdestiny’s chronology point some, did a really effective job at cutting some support for the New Day as GOATs considering their less than stellar WM record.

This was a helluva debate. Honestly, after round 1 and early round 2, I thought kdestiny was going to have this. And they both did great. It really could have gone either way. Nash wins as he most effectively undercut the oppositions points, meaning his own about impact was the one that stood the most. His assertions and consistency on the main point carry the day.

In a very close semi-final, @Nash Diesel has secured his route to the grand final in a 2-1 victory. Congratulations Nash!!

Unlucky @kdestiny, very well fought! As a consolation prize, your entrance music choice for the final will be used as your exit music!