10 Weirdest Wrestling Cults Ever

Professional wrestling is largely a solo pursuit with a company’s top title - or in WWE’s case, titles - being a solo championship. However, stables and teams are one of the foundations of any wrestling organisation. Where there is a team, there must be a leader, the rise of whom can take a stable into dark territory. A group of wrestlers working together towards a common goal can rapidly become a cult.

Though pop culture often equates cults with religious groups, more are based around social movements.

At the core of a cult is a charismatic leader, who is believed to be the group’s power source, which makes them immune to any substantial accountability. The leader seeks to coerce, manipulate, and reform via acts of brainwashing. Therefore, the cult leader becomes the embodiment of everything that is right and true. On the other hand, members who question and waver in their thinking are often isolated, penalised, humiliated, and berated for their lack of faith, sometimes leading to violence.

As the world of big business has often been theorised to attract those with psychopathic tendencies, it appears professional wrestling and cult leaders have a similar relationship…

RETRIBUTION is a bizarre cult, hampered by a small following and a leader demoted to a figurehead due to his lack of magnetism. Ali’s only real cultish attribute is berating his followers.

The group debuted wearing head to toe black and hidden behind balaclavas. They attacked WWE personnel with baseball bats and damaged the performance area with spray paint and a chainsaw. This piqued some interest, with fans turning into sleuths to identify the group’s identities.

Then they debuted in those masks, looking as if they should be collecting participation trophies in a Mad Max convention, and not one held in a major city. They talked vaguely about tackling the “sickness that is responsible for the infestation of this hell hole”.

From here the team would go on to have repeated losses to The Hurt Business and became the butt of jokes and humiliation. The group was in dire straits before Ali was revealed as leader, the group’s highlight.

The stable left Eric Bischoff questioning: “Could you possibly screw up an invasion storyline anymore in such a short period of time?”