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- This article is about a professional wrestling stable. See French Resistance for the World War II resistance movement, and La Resistance for the Bigger, Longer and Uncut reference.
La Résistance was a professional wrestling stable that formerly wrestled on WWE RAW. They were originally billed as a French team at a time when many Americans resented the French people for the French government's lack of support in the American war against Iraq.
Stable history
Creation and RAW debut
The stable was created when WWE aired commercials of two arrogant "Frenchmen" (Sylvain Grenier and René Duprée) attacking the United States and its policy from a French news studio.Grenier and Duprée made their first appearance on the April 28, 2003 edition of RAW as La Résistance by attacking Scott Steiner. Steiner had made remarks two weeks earlier comparing France to hell and Grenier and Duprée were offended. La Résistance went on to fued with Scott Steiner and Test who was forced to be Steiner's tag team partner by Stacy Kiebler, La Résistance ended up defeating Steiner and Test at WWE Judgement Day on May 18, 2003 in the team's pay-per-view debut. Their most notorious insult to the United States came on Memorial Day 2003 when they interrupted RAW announcer Lilian Garcia as she was singing America the Beautiful. After several minutes of Grenier calling America barbarians and saying that France would not allow the US to be the policeman of the world, the sound of glass shattering suddenly filled the arena when Stone Cold Steve Austin cleared the ring of La Résistance and said some unflattering remarks about the French nation.
Grenier and Duprée went on to win the WWE World Tag Team Championship from Kane and Rob Van Dam at Bad Blood on June 15, 2003.
Membership changes
In mid 2003 the decision was made to add a third member. Enter Rob Conway, who posed as an American serviceman being abused by Grenier and Duprée. When The Dudley Boyz came out to attack La Résistance they brought Conway in the ring with an American flag. Once the Dudley Boyz had their backs turned to Conway, he attacked them with the American flag and then tore it off the pole and laid it on top of them.La Resistance lost the titles at Unforgiven 2003 in a three on two handicapped tables match to the Dudley Boyz. The trio went on to feud with several other tag teams, including Hurricane and Rosey, and the team of Garrison Cade and Mark Jindrak before Grenier suffered a back injury in October 2003. Duprée and Conway would hold the team together until Grenier's return on the March 15, 2004 edition of RAW, but the stable was broken up the very next week when Duprée was drafted in a lottery by WWE's other brand, SmackDown!.
Second championship reign
La Résistance still existed, but as a tag team featuring Grenier and Conway, and now billed as a French-Canadian team. Several months after the loss of Duprée, La Résistance went on to win the World Tag-Team Titles in Grenier's home town of Montréal, Québec to a standing ovation.With the help of RAW GM Eric Bischoff La Résistance managed to keep hold of the titles for five months, but at the first interactive PPV Taboo Tuesday they had to defend their titles against the two Superstars who were not voted for by the fans to get a World Heavyweight Title shot at Triple H. This stipulation meant they would either face the team of Edge and Chris Benoit, Edge and Shawn Michaels, or Benoit and Michaels.
During Taboo Tuesday the annoucement was made that HBK (Shawn Michaels) had been voted for a title shot with 38.72% of the vote compared to Edge's 33.42% and Benoit's 27.86%; this meant La Résistance would meet the same pairing they defeated to win the championship five months earlier (Benoit and Edge).
The team of Chris Benoit & Edge managed to defeat La Résistance to win the World Tag-Team Championship, even though Edge left the arena half-way through the match leaving Benoit to win the match on his own.
Third championship reign
The team of Grenier and Conway went on to win back the tag team championship from Chris Benoit and Edge just thirteen days after losing the title to them on an episode of RAW. Soon after, on the November 15, 2004 edition of RAW, La Résistance lost the World Tag Team Championship to Eugene and William Regal.Fourth championship reign
Grenier and Conway managed to win the World Tag Team Championship for the third time together and fourth since the creation of the stable. This championship reign was a rare one since it was won at a RAW-brand house show on January 16, 2005 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is rare at house shows since only a relatively small number of people have the chance to see them. This time, La Résistance defeated William Regal and Jonathan Coachman, who was taking the place of the injured Eugene. Eugene injured his left patellar tendon at New Year's Revolution and would miss several months. Grenier and Conway soon lost the belts back to William Regal on RAW from Tokyo, Japan, after Regal found himself a new tag team partner, Tajiri.Challenging for the gold
La Résistance repeatedly attempted to regain the gold (mainly on Sunday Night Heat) from Regal and Tajiri in many different matches but just fell short during each one. During their "last shot" for the gold the team thought they had won back the titles only to have the decision reversed by referee Mike Chioda due to La Résistance not pinning the legal man. La Résistance went on to lose the match, this was to be their last chance to win back the gold from Regal and Tajiri.The team were given one more chance at Regal and Tajiri during a Tag Team Turmoil match during Backlash. In the match La Résistance managed to eliminate the champions but were still unable to win the match and regain the titles as they were defeated by the winners of the match Hurricane and Rosey. The next night on RAW La Résistance tried again to win the titles in a match against the new champions but were unsuccessful again.
Singles competition
Grenier and Conway went into singles competition with annoucers claiming that the members of La Résistance were trying to "one up" each other in singles matches without the other man in their corner. This saw Conway defeat a Jobber and Val Venis, while Grenier was defeated by both Val Venis and Chris Jericho before both men competed in a triple threat match (against Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin for the title), Benjamin won the match not long after the La Résistance members began to argue and fight. This altercation between the two led to a taped main event match on June 6, 2005, for the June 12th edition of Sunday Night HEAT. This match saw Rob Conway portray the heel character, and defeat Sylvain Grenier.Draft 2005: End of La Résistance
On June 30, 2005, Grenier and Conway were last minute trades in the 2005 WWE Draft, which saw Grenier leave RAW to go to Smackdown!, and Conway stay on RAW. This seemingly marked the end of Grenier's already shakey tag team partnership with Conway, who remained a RAW superstar.The door was left open for Dupree to, once again, become a La Résistance member, and team with Conway. But there was no attempt to take Rene Dupree, or Rob Conway out of singles competition. Rene Dupree continued to maintain his French part of his character, citing himself as being "The French Phenom." Rob Conway went on to portray a vain, mirror-adoring narcissistic heel. Meanwhile, SmackDown!'s Sylvain Grenier shortened his name to Sylvan and took the role of a French male model and was billed as SmackDown's "fashion consultant" with much the same vanities and arrogance of Conway.
Signature team moves
Grenier and Dupree
- Bonsoir (Double spinebuster)
Conway and Grenier
- Au Revoir (An assisted elevated neckbreaker slam)
- La Crêpe / Bonne Nuit (Bearhug, clothesline combination)
Trivia
- The entrance music of La Résistance was used previously for the video recap and promo for The Undertaker vs. Ric Flair match at WrestleMania X8.
"La Résistance"