The Un-Americans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Un-Americans (Lance Storm, Test and Christian) on an episode of SmackDown!. Not pictured is William Regal, who would join after the stable moved to RAW.

The Un-Americans (originally known as The Anti-Americans) were a heel professional wrestling stable in World Wrestling Entertainment who were active throughout mid-2002. The stable was comprised of anti-American Canadian and British wrestlers.

1 History
2 Members
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 References

[edit] History

The Un-Americans were formed on SmackDown! in June 2002 by the Canadian Lance Storm, who had led a similar stable known as Team Canada in World Championship Wrestling. Storm claimed that World Wrestling Entertainment had discriminated against Canadians for years, citing the Montreal Screwjob as an example of this. Christian and Test, also Canadians, joined the burgeoning stable later that month. The stable was named The Anti-Americans shortly thereafter.

In July 2002, The Anti-Americans began feuding with characters such as Rey Mysterio, Rikishi, fellow Canadian then babyface, Edge and Hulk Hogan. On July 21, 2002 at Vengeance 2002, Storm and Christian defeated Edge and Hogan to win the World Tag Team Championship. They were assisted by Chris Jericho, another Canadian, although Jericho did not formally join the stable. Original plans, according to Storm, were to have the four Canadians form a group called C-4, but plans were scrapped before many details could be worked out.

The Anti-Americans were drafted from SmackDown! to RAW on July 29, 2002, and immediately began a feud with The Undertaker. This is when Jim Ross started announcing them as The Un-Americans, the first indication of the unexplained name change to the now more acclaimed name. They went on to feud with Booker T and Goldust, who Storm and Christian defeated in a World Tag Team Championship title match at SummerSlam 2002 on August 25, 2002. In the same night, The Undertaker defeated Test in a singles match.

In late August and early September 2002, The Un-Americans attempted on several occasions to burn the American flag, but were thwarted on each occasion by Booker T, Goldust, Kane and Bradshaw. In mid September, the English William Regal joined the stable. At Unforgiven 2002 on September 22, 2002, The Un-Americans lost to Booker T, Goldust, Kane and Bubba Ray Dudley in an eight-man tag team match.

Storm and Christian lost the World Tag Team Championship on September 23, 2002 when they were defeated by Kane and The Hurricane. Following the match, both Storm and Christian blamed one another for the loss. One week later, Storm and Christian were both defeated in singles matches, and Test and Regal lost a tag team match. The series of losses divided The Un-Americans, and the stable split in brawling fashion.

Regal and Storm continued to team with one another, Test soon progressed into an angle involving Scott Steiner and Stacy Keibler, and Christian went on to team regularly with Chris Jericho. Among all the original Un-Americans (including Jericho as an associate), only Regal and Storm possessed anti-American sentiments, but only in a vague sense.

As indicated by the name, the Un-Americans differed from previous incarnations of Team Canada in that they were anti-American rather than pro-Canadian. As a result of this, the emblem of the stable was not the Canadian flag, but an American flag flown upside down.