Freebirds vs. The Shield, best trios in American history?

[The Chief]

I was going to mention Evolution with Flair as the manager but then Dylan might blow up the internet.

I haven't seen them since they first aired, but Evolution at least had some good tags over the Summer of 2004 with the Raw babyfaces. Legacy has nothing.

 

Vince: "You know who's great? Randy Orton. You know what would be even better? Three Randy Ortons!"

[SomethingSavage]

The Elimination Match with Evolution from RAW in the summer of '04 is great, and you're right. There's an abundance of matches just like it. They ran a variation of six-mans, tags, 8-mans, etc. throughout most of 2004 - to the point where it was practically a total copy & paste of the Horsemen formula.

 

The one with Foley coming back a week before his Backlash bout with Orton isn't anything extraordinary, but it's a LOT of fun for sheer atmosphere alone. Plus, it's Mick back looking as slim as his Cactus Jack Manson "light heavyweight" days in World Class. So there's that.

 

The Shield would definitely get my vote in terms of match quality. For their entire duration, it didn't matter WHO they were booked against. You were guaranteed no less than a solid match. It ranged from good to absolutely GREAT at times, for sure. But it never dipped below just "good." And, when ya consider that their opponents varied from Los Matadores to dream teams of Team Hell No & Undertaker and even hodgepodge "superstar" pairings like Cena, Ryback, and Sheamus - well, that's certainly worth acknowledging.

 

But I'm still sticking with the Freebirds overall. Simply for the duration of their run together, the significance of the angles they participated in, their longevity, their legacy left, and so on...