(Originally written a few weeks ago.... before Backlash obviously)
Hey there... welcome to..
Degeneration X
They were bold, brash, cocky, insensitive, obscene and very much politically incorrect. They crotch dropped their way to fame and fortune for the better part of three years. Some people were offended, others were mesmerized. But one thing is for sure, when it came to the matter of Degeneration X there was no 'middle ground'. You either loved them, or loathed them. And if you believed their on-screen characters, the men involved in the stable themselves could honestly not care less.
For some people the seeds of the attitude era in the WWF were planted the day Steve Austin made his famous proclamation of 'Austin 3:16' at the King Of The Ring. Some others cite 'The Montreal Screwjob' in which Vince McMahon infamously stripped Bret 'The Hitman' Hart of the WWF title in order to save himself the embarrassment of having the WWF champion leave his company for the rival WCW without properly being defeated before hand. While arguments can be made for each case, and some good ones at that, for me the 'Attitude Era' that would go on to change the face of the entire wrestling industry began the night after Survivor Series 1997 on Monday Night Raw. This was the night that I was first exposed to the opening riffs of 'Break It Down' the new theme song for the rebellious wrestling renegades known as Degeneration X. As soon as I heard the opening chords chime out and saw the new WWF champion and his two protege's Triple H and Chyna come strolling brashly down the entrance ramp, I knew, don't ask me how, because I can't explain it in any way that would make sense then or now, I just knew, that a new era had dawned for a company and for an entire industry on top of it.
I mentioned Bret Hart's infamous defection and screwjob earlier. It was right around this point that everyone employed by or involved with the World Wrestling Federation had began sweating bullets. In spite of putting out a product that was as good or better than their competition, they were still for the majority of nights, on the losing end of the notorious Monday Night Ratings War. Basically the WWF was backed up against a wall at gun point and were looking down the cold heartless eyes of Eric Bishoff, Ted Turner, and also most stunningly the man who said he would stick with the WWF forever, Bret 'The Hitman' Hart. To say things were looking bleak for Vince and Co. would be an understatement. So with that being established it was pretty much an afterthought that if the WWF did not do something to create some kind of monster 'buzz' within the industry that their days as a company just might be numbered, and that they very well could have been looking at the same fates that they once inflicted upon dozens of regional wrestling companies back in the 1980's.
So what did they do? With their backs up against the wall, and the entire wrestling world breathing down their collective necks? The answer to that is two fold. Vince using as his mouth pieces, Triple H and Shawn Michaels gave his competition and the world at large a simple two word response... He basically told every traditionalist wrestling fan in the world to go and 'Suck it!'. And through those two immortal words, a wrestling revolution was born. But before we start getting into that, I think it's crucial for us to understand the genesis of this legendary stable. The roots of Degeneration X came from the same seedy top soil that also spawned their fellow iconic bad-ass brethren 'The New World Order'.
You see, before there was the NWO, and long before there was DX, there was another infamous stable that wrecked havoc backstage at Titan Towers. It's name was 'The Clique' and it was comprised of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels, Paul Levesque, Sean Waltman and Peter Polaco. It was through the main event status of Michaels and Nash that they used to attempt to make the WWF as friendly a place as possible for their friends and as unfriendly a place for their enemies. Now, many people will condemn the clique for these type of actions. I however, am not one of these people.
Let me ask you this; how many times in your life have you been given a job simply because of a friends recommendation? Unless you are in the vast minority the answer to that is probably dozens. And what in the hell is wrong with that? To want to look out for ones friends is considered an admirable trait in most society's. However having said that, I cannot condone the stories of Nash and HBK intentionally "holding" people back just because they simply did not care for them either personally or professionally. That is just deplorable, but I'm not writing a column to condemn the clique. I am only bringing up their notorious and very important and crucial history. And furthermore, being only a fan myself and not someone who was around to witness the 'politics' of Michaels and his buddies, my opinion on this matter probably means jack shit to most of you as it should.
Now as I said earlier, the clique was made up of the combined backstage prowess of HBK, HHH, Waltman, Polaco (Aldo Montoya) Hall, and Nash, with the central nucleus of the group being at the time HBK, Hall and Nash, in that they were the three most popular men in the group at the time. This merry band of backstage terrors wouldn't stay a happy and loving family for much longer though. Through various defections to other company's the aforementioned seeds of the clique were scattered to the far corners of the Earth. With Waltman, Hall and Nash landing comfortably in WCW, Polaco in ECW ( As Justin Credible), leaving Michaels and Levesque being the only two to remain firmly planted in the vast fertile valley of McMahon.
At first for Levesque at least it must have seemed in many ways like a mistake deciding to be loyal to the WWF. Since of all the people present during the infamous ( I sure am using that word alot in this column) "curtain call" which saw Trips, Shawn, Hall and Nash engage in one final group hug before Hall and Nash would depart for the greener pastures of Ted Turner's billfold, Triple H was the only one punished in any decided way. Since Hall and Nash were gone, Vince could hardly do anything to them (beside create looka-likes) and since Shawn was the top guy in the WWF at the time, he was off limits as well. So speaking deductively here, the only target left in McMahon's cross hairs was the aforementioned Greenwich snob, Triple H. I'm sure that professionally speaking, 1996 is a year that Paul Levesque would just as soon have stricken from the record books altogether. I mean he went from a promising young star to being jobbed out to the friggin' Ultimate Warrior in a matter of mere seconds.
But what's in the past is in the past and we all know the ending to the Triple H story don't we? So getting back on track, if the NWO's modus operandi was to appear as though they were rebels sticking to the 'man' in WCW, Degeneration X's M.O would be much the same in the WWF. The only differences being their target and execution. DX was basically rebelling against the WWF and trying to solidify their top spots in the company by basically running rough-shot over everyone else. Sound familiar? You see, the thing that killed off the NWO eventually was that it just got too damn bloated. DX on the other hand at it's most extravagant point only boasted four or five members. If the NWO could have only shown such restraint then, perhaps the entire wrestling land scape as we know it, would be drastically different from what it is today. But as I said earlier, what's in the past is in the past and this is not a column about the damned New World Order.
With Triple H and HBK at them helm DX helped to breath new life into a nearly exasperated and expired WWF. Their offensively crude humor and off color remarks were far removed from the days when a certain wrestler with a strange orange glow radiating off of him would spout out such drivel as 'Say your prayers, take your vitamins, and don't take any short-cuts etc etc.. BROTHER!'. On the contrary Degeneration X took every short cut they could find and while they might have been on some 'Vitamins' back in the day, I doubt very much that they had Cartoon Characters on the labels of them. This stable grew to be so popular at one point that it even had a Pay Per View named in it's honor.
At it's peak point it boasted among it's members 'The Baddest Man On The Planet' 'Iron' Mike Tyson himself. The image of Tyson dawning that DX shirt for the first time is one that this columnist will truly never forget. However, he was not to be a permanent addition to the stable as at Wrestlemania 14 he revealed his true colors by counting the three count that would begin the legendary JR coined 'Austin Era' in the world of wrestling. Also, after the match he leveled Shawn with what was allegedly a very stiff punch to the chops. And with that, chapter one in the story of Degeneration X came to a sudden close.
This original version of DX (which was my favorite version by far) lasted from sometime around late 1997 until around the close of the first quarter of 1998. The reason for it's collapse was caused initially by an injury sustained (or compiled up) to the back of DX leader Shawn Michaels. This career shortening back injury spelled not only what looked to be the end of DX, but also the end of one of the most iconic careers in WWF history. For those of you thinking this was where the story ends though, you may now dawn your dunce hat and go sit in the corner of shame. Because you are sadly mistaken. Degeneration X was not dead, not yet anyway. The night after Wrestlemania 14 on Raw Degeneration X had not one but three shocking additions join their ranks. The first one was aforementioned clique member Shawn 'X-Pac' Waltman, with the latter two being long time DX underlings 'The New Age Outlaws'. With this shot in the arm DX would go on for another year or so providing the wrestling world with some of the most insane antics and funniest promos of all time. Among their accomplishments was the original 'InVasion' of WCW, the 'Nation Of Domination' parody and finally the red hot feuds with people such as 'The Rock' and later on with 'The Corporation'.
The final nail in that era of DX was put into place after Triple H defected to 'The Corporation' at Wrestlemania 15. Although to be accurate DX was briefly brought back during the 'McMahon Helmsley' era, but seriously, the mental image of Stephanie McMahon doing the patented DX 'Crotch Drop' is enough to make me want to literally erase this part of DX history straight out of my mind. It was with this and later on with her assuming ownership of 'ECW' that I truly came to despise her as an on air character, not to mention the general lame soap opera inspired swill that passes itself off as wrestling on my television every Monday and Friday night. Also DX was briefly brought back in 2002 as a tease to help kick off the storyline that saw the in ring return of 'The Heartbreak Kid' Shawn Michaels and wrestling's version of 'The Never Ending Story' in the long bitter HBK vs HHH rivalry
Part Deux - Regeneration X
At Wrestlemania 22 we all bore witness to the return of one of the most infamous poses in the history of the business, 'The Crotch Drop. Just literally seconds before diving off an enormous ladder to the trash can stuffed creator of sports entertainment and 'Mcmahonism' old HBK went to a place that he hadn't been in many moons. The night after this on the same broadcast that saw Vince McMahon offer up an open challenge to 'God' Shawn also brought back a once often used two word catch phrase when he had the 20,000 screaming fans attending the broadcast that night tell old Vinny Mac to 'Suck It'. In the preceding weeks we have also seen Triple H use the aforementioned X shaped crotch drop and also he has been in a few heated backstage segments with Vince. All of this is being done as a supposed teasing of a DX reunion. One would have to be one salty idiot indeed to not see the blatant parallel between Vince challenging 'God' to a tag team match and Triple H's new nickname 'The King Of Kings' ( which of these ideas is the more blatantly offensive I will leave up to you to decide)
But the question I pose for this column is, is this really that good of an idea? In the original genesis of Degeneration X Triple H was a struggling mid-carder in need of some career assistance. Surely the same cannot be said now. Also the original DX was fronted up by an entirely different Shawn Michaels than the one we see on our TV's today. I have my doubts as to how far the current incarnation of Shawn Michaels would go with both his promos and his 'degenerate' actions. Furthermore, the original DX as I said before was founded on the idea of rebelliousness and "sticking it" to "the man".
Ask any modern wrestling fan these days who 'the man' is in WWE and you will probably get the same answer about a billion times. It's without a shadow of a doubt, Triple H. So he would basically be "sticking it" to himself. Add to that the newfound responsibility Triple H is about to receive in the form of a child from his lovely wife Stephanie and you begin to see the picture on a much larger scale. In the end, does Triple H want to be remembered as a ten time world champion and one of the greatest performers of all time, or as the guy who played second fiddle to HBK and pointed to his balls alot? Not to say that he would be playing second fiddle to anyone in the new DX, but still, the crotch dropping point remains. However, with all of those facts established, the reason why I think that bringing back DX is a great idea in the end can be surmised in one word.
Nostalgia.
It's what makes people scream out loud whenever that old orange goblin Hogan struts onto our television sets for 'one more match'. It's what gets a massive ovation whenever the name 'Bret Hart' is even mentioned. And also it's what makes each of us yearn passionately for the on screen returns of Steve Austin, The Rock and alas Degeneration X. WWE has been pushing so much nostalgia on us recently that I'm sure many people are probably almost getting sick to death of it. Can you imagine the merchandise figures for a new crop of DX shirts? It would make the current sales accumulated by John Cena look absolutely pathetic by comparison. Hell, I know people who still wear DX shirts to this day, years after that stable has been made nothing more than a part of fabled WWE history. It's one of the few ideas in wrestling history that is as over in death, as it was in life.
People would definitely pop for a DX return, that's a fact that's never been in question whatsoever. One question I have though is, 'Who will replace the role of Chyna?'.
I seriously doubt that Stephanie would allow an ex-girlfriend of her current husband to be brought back into the fold. And scoff at me if you will but Chyna was pretty much the 'Arn Anderson' of DX. In that she was a part of every single incarnation of that stable since it's inception. She was officially dubbed as the 'bodyguard' of Triple H and Michaels, which lent to the comedic aspect of the group. I mean, how many world champion athletes can you think of that have 200 pound amazonian women with ginormous biceps for a bodyguard? It's just not something you see everyday and it helped the 'uniqueness' factor of DX immeasurably. Also she didn't used to be so damned ugly... I guess Shawn probably did himself a favor by turning away from that old pill popping lifestyle after all eh?
I guess that they could just bring in Sean Waltman to fulfill the role of HHH and Shawn's bitch for a while. But I would prefer the number of 'add on' members be kept to a minimum actually. I have heard discussed on various message boards the possibilities of adding people like Chris Jericho, Carlito or MNM to the fold. Now while the idea of Melina doing the splits while clad in some skimpy DX uniform makes unmentionable parts of my body do amazingly pleasurable things, in the end having these people in DX is both unnecessary and illogical. Why in God's name would Chris Jericho want to return to the active roster just to become Triple H's lackey? And Carlito is doing fine on his own and doesn't need to be a part of any stable for the time being. Triple H and Shawn Micheals are Degeneration X. No one else is needed. Not Billy Gun, not Road Dog or Waltman, or even as much as I've politicked for her here, Chyna.
Now that we've got that out of the way there's the business of how to properly bring them back. One rather scary scenario I see playing out here is that Shawn and Trips will form some kind of DX stable to fight off the rabid cult of 'Mcmahonism' followers. That would make for some truly God awful television and I hope to the Good Lord above that it never ever happens. Holy wars aside though, I think that Triple H coming in as the 'God' partner would probably be one of the dumbest ideas in wrestling history. How much friggin' heat does this guy need already? I mean he's already one of the most loathed people in IWC history. Doing this would only serve to make him one of the most detested people in the history of popular Christianity as a whole. To put it in lamens terms, right now Christianity's top three most hated people ever are as follows.
1. Satan
2. Howard Stern
3. The Purple Tella Tubby
After Backlash if they go with what everyone is predicting it would probably go like this.
1. Vince McMahon
2. Triple H
3. The damned purple Tella Tubby.
You see what I'm getting at? They need to steer clear from all this God crap as fast as humanly possible. It's got disaster written all over it. A much more effective way of bringing back DX would simply be to have Triple H run in and make the save for good old HBK while he was getting beaten down by Vince and Shane the next night on Raw. Why you ask would Triple H want to help out the man with whom he has been engaged in a bitter blood feud with for the past four years? It's simple, they both would have a common enemy. As a matter of fact if you wanted to really turn some heads, then WWE could pull the trigger on the John Cena heel turn and have it be Trips and HBK vs Vince McMahon and his latest Corporate cronie, John Cena. This way DX would have a pre-built storyline just waiting in the wings for them and also it would make for a much better match up than Triple H vs Vince or Shane. While they are battling Cena and Vince they would slowly begin to get back on each others good side and alas, Degeneration X would rise from the ashes once more as the top stable in sports entertainment.
In the end though, as fun as it would be seeing a reborn and rejuvenated DX, I can't for see this stable having another elongated run. For all of the above reasons and many others. While it will be entertaining no doubt, and it will also pop the crowd and perhaps get a big rating for Raw, I give this new DX a good two or three months tops before Vince, Shawn, or HHH pulls the plug. As big of a nostalgia rush as it will surely be HBK and HHH both deserve to end their careers on higher notes than the one pictured here.
But while it lasts, I for one will surely mark the f*** out.. If you are among the people that won't, then I've got two words for you.... *At this point all of my readers simultaneously let out a deafening chant of SUCK IT!*
Now for a special TWV exclusive. It is the return of Pulp Wrestling's 10 Commandments!
I: I am the great 'I am' and at Backlash I am going to open up a can of unholy whoop-ass on Vince's sorry ass.
II: Thou shalt fire Mark Henry before he kills someone, dammit!
III: Thou shalt not ever let The Great Khali cut a promo, ever again.
IV: Thou shalt not dis-honor the legacy of ECW. If you are going to do this, for the love of all that is holy, please do it right.
V: Thou shalt give London and Kendrick the tag titles already.
VI: Thou shalt stop placing spare tables under the ring, and instead keep them backstage.
VII: Thou shalt go one PPV without trying to kill Carlos and Hugo.
VIII: Thou shalt not chokeslam your partner, Kane.
IX: Thou shalt wish Kurt Angle a speedy recovery.
X: Thou shalt get TNA some more TV time.
NoDQ.com will be having live coverage of TNA Turning Point on November 15th starting at 8PM EST. Please spread the word (using the Share button above) about NoDQ.com on MySpace, Facebook, and as many other websites as possible. Thank you and we greatly appreciate your continued support!
NoDQ.com Comment Board
(Click on Profile at the bottom to register your name!)
You'll find information on this fan-created website about the following: WWE News, WWE Rumors, WWE Spoilers, WWE Results, TNA News, TNA Rumors, TNA Spoilers, TNA Results, UFC News, UFC Rumors, UFC Spoilers, UFC Results, John Cena, Vince McMahon, Edge, Christian, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Batista, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Mick Foley, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, The Undertaker, Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Randy Orton, Chuck Liddell, RAW vs. Smackdown, Wrestling Video Games, WWE Divas, TNA Knockouts, Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, PPV Results, and much more!
