Needing a DX/nWo for this generation!

I have been an avid fan of the WWE for many years now. I remember clearly going to a show in Philly and seeing the Honky Tonk Man, Hulk Hogan, the Red Rooster, and Tatanka there. Nowadays many fans hear those names and say “who?” (well except for Hulk Hogan who is waaaaaaay past his sell by date). I was also privileged enough in the mid to late 90’s to see the emergence of two factions who made the Monday night wars unforgettable and they were the nWo and D-Generation X. In my opinion the nWo was a failed experiment due to letting in too many of WCW’s wrestlers. I mean when you get a rebel group together that has more people than what you were originally rebelling against well that’s just cheapens the story line to me. However, until just a few years ago, DX was still a huge name until the fateful match at Wrestlemania with Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker that caused Michaels to quit. So why do I bring up these two powerhouse factions now? The reason is simple, the WWE needs new hero’s! So bear with me while I take you on a strange journey between two rival companies and their biggest factions ever and then I’ll tell you why we need one of them to be resurrected or at least duplicated now.

First I’ll talk a little about the nWo. The nWo started out as a great idea. Take a few of the old WWE stars that had jumped ship and introduce them in a way that they were an outside force “invading” your company. Get a few major heal turns like Hulk Hogan and have some great mic guys like Ted DiBiase help them gain in popularity. This was an awesome angle because you had a small group of people going against the big corporation headed by Ted Turner and Turner Broadcasting which owned the WCW. Sure it was all scripted by the WCW, but for a story line it was a new and radical twist. You always had the good guys and the bad guys in wrestling but it was very rare to find yourself rooting for the bad guys simply because they were sticking it to the boss yet that’s what you had here a corporate invasion basically that aimed to take down the WCW. Unfortunately for the nWo, they just did not know when to quit when it came to recruiting talent. I mean here they are invading a WCW show as an outside force and then within a year or so you have more ex-WCW wrestlers on the nWo than you have people in the WCW. At this point it became overdone as you had 3 real big hold outs against the nWo it seemed and then a bunch of jobbers who weren’t in the nWo simply because they sucked compared to everyone else. It got so bad that the nWo had to have some of the members break off to create the nWo Wolfpac to fight the nWo and even that was a sham to get Hogan the Championship belt away from the WCW. I think the finger poke heard around the world was when the fans all started to realize how overdone the nWo had become as it was shortly after this that nWo and WCW seemed to start to decline. I think one of their other big failures is that Eric Bischoff was the face of the authority for a bit in the WCW but he very quickly turned into a leading member of the nWo.

Now onto the WWE’s version of the nWo also known as D-Generation X. While DX and nWo shared quite a few aspects of what they were (including a member in the person X-Pac) I think that DX had a few things in it’s favor that let it last so long. First the members of DX were kept pretty exclusive, at the most DX had 6 actual wrestling members. The other thing that helped make DX better in my mind was that while they like nWo were rebelling against authority you actually had someone being seen as the Authority in the form of Vince McMahon who was “tortured” by DX’s antics every week. While nWo started things DX was the group to take things to the next level. nWo spray painted their logo on their opponents back and small on some cars and trailers, DX put their logo in bright Neon Green paint all over the camera’s, cars, trailers, corporate jets and even in 30 foot tall letters on the WWE Corporate headquarters building. While nWo simply took over their own company DX took the Monday Night Wars to the WCW by driving a tank like vehicle over to the stadium where they were broadcasting from though they did not gain entrance. DX was also infamous for taking over the media truck and changing the voices on Mr McMahon’s microphone, dropping a latrine full of feces on Vince and Shane McMahon and the Spirit Squad, making fun of Vince McMahon whenever they could, and somehow alluding to him liking cock. One of the most memorable things about DC though was that they told you right out, if you weren’t down with them they had two words for you- SUCK IT!

The reason I have brought up the history of these two groups is simple, once again we have the face of Authority in wrestling making life hell on the wrestlers and the fans both. This has been going on for almost a year now ever since Summer Slam of last year when Triple H screwed over Daniel Bryan allowing Randy Orton to gain the championship belt. Ever since that time Triple H and Stephanie McMahon have run roughshod over anyone who does not agree with them. If it’s not the S.H.I.E.L.D. being sent after someone to triple team them then they are firing someone (Big Show and Cody Rhodes). They have chastised the superstars and punished them in handicap matches just for stating their viewpoints. They have made superstars sit by the side of the ring helpless to get involved (or they lose their job) then put their friends in harms way. One of the things that frustrates me to no end is that I read speculation that for a while when Bryan was put back into mid-card matches it was because his matches with Orton weren’t drawing the numbers wanted. I have to say that it’s not Bryan’s fault (which I think they may now realize) but it is the fault of seeing Bryan screwed over week after week after week when he is the fan favorite. It seems right now that the only people who are getting ahead in the WWE are the heels. Of course one of the most disappointing things is that for the most part DX has made it’s return but they are not the DX we remember. Triple H is now the one being the evil leader of the Authority, Shawn Michaels came back as a ref and instead of calling things down the middle allowed himself to screw over Daniel Bryan who was Shawn’s student. Then worst of all is that the New Age Outlaws come back and they seem to be the same old guys we always knew until they went and walked out of a match leaving C.M. Punk high and dry against the S.H.I.E.L.D.

A huge problem with needing a new DX or nWo is simply who could ever fill their shoes? The only reason Hogan worked for nWo was because he had been a face character for so very long no one would have ever expected him to change so when he did it was an amazing thing that left people speechless. Triple H and Shawn Michaels and the New Age Outlaws were always kinda on the edge whether they were face or heal. But who do we have today that could pull this off? For the initial stable to keep things together I can certainly see a threesome of C.M. Punk, Daniel Bryan and perhaps John Cena to round things out. Punk can definitely pull off a DX attitude but I’m not so sure about the other two as they have been too squeaky clean for the most part over the years. You have a good tag team setup that could take the place of the New Age Outlaws in the shape of the Rhodes Brothers, after all Goldust was one of the most controversial wrestlers during the attitude era and his younger brother Cody has a great reason to go against the Authority from when he had been fired just for not agreeing with Triple H. I would also like to see Big Show get involved in a new DX/nWo type group because if anyone deserves payback more than Daniel Bryan it is Show.

All I know for sure is that we need a new group of heroes in the WWE to band together and step up to go against the authority! After all if other fans feel like I do there may be a huge decline in sales and such if something doesn’t change in the Story Lines soon.

Who do you think should be the new heroes of the WWE and stand against the Authority?

Photo’s Courtesy of:

nWo Logo- tvtropes.org

nWo original 3 Members- onlineworldofwrestling.com

DX Logo- wwe24seven.com

DX Team members- ewrestlingnews.com