When it comes to professional wrestling, one of the most important storyline tools you can use to build up the intensity of a rivalry is a stable. Whether it’s a heel or face coalition of superstars, a stable can instantly be used to turn a lot of mid to upper midcarder’s careers upside down – and more often than not, it’ll certainly propel them towards better things.
Obviously, that isn’t always the case, but when it comes to D-Generation X, there’s not a truer word that can be spoken. You see, during its original inception, DX was essentially two best friends messing around and seeing what they can get away with. With Shawn Michaels and Triple H being quickly joined by Rick Rude and Chyna, the unorthodox group helped to change the entire perception of professional wrestling in a few months.
It’s something that no other stable, perhaps aside from the NWO, has been able to accomplish and nobody will ever again – fact. Some of the stunts that we saw DX pull off would be unthinkable in the modern age of WWE programming, with HBK and HHH exposing themselves to the world in more ways than one.
Nowadays things are a lot more PG both in terms of the product and the actual television rating, but that isn’t necessarily the reason behind the extinction of DX-esque groups. You see, what some fans fail to realise is that when you revolutionise something in the manner that DX did, it can’t happen again purely by definition.
If another group decides to imitate what they’ve done on a few consecutive episodes of Raw, it's initially great, but how long will it be until they’re branded with the same iron as Ryback when he was compared to Goldberg? The DX chants would start to echo around the arena, and there are a lot more limitations in 2017 than there were back in 1997.
Plus, the demographic has completely changed. When DX were first mixing things up the goal was to win the Monday Night Wars and, as you would expect, Vince was willing to do anything and everything within his power to ensure that WWE came out on top in their battle with WCW.
That's not a dig at Vince either because he had to do something different, and boy oh boy did he. The 18-30 target audience at the time absolutely loved what they were seeing, and if there were kids in attendance, it didn’t matter so much to the company because the sheer volume of viewers they were generating rendered most of the complaints obsolete.
Nowadays the standard ratings see about 3 to 4 million viewers tune in every week, which is nothing compared to the Attitude Era. Because of that, the focus has switched to a much more family friendly product, meaning there’s not a chance in hell (pun not intended) that you’re going to see the kind of profanities that were relatively common during the late 90s.
Oh, and let’s be honest with ourselves – there’s nobody on the level of HBK & HHH that could pull something like this off to such a strong degree. Sure, some guys are talented down in the developmental system, but none of them has that extra quality that screams “Superstar”.
Even if there was, none of them would stick their neck out on the line like these guys did. After all, it’s pretty well known that they were putting their careers on the line when taking a risk like this – and it paid off. Nowadays, guys are happy to do as they’re told and collect their paychecks, even if it means missing out on great TV. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule every now and again, but there’s nobody around who’s going to go out on a limb to change the status quo.
Now, if you can, try and imagine that everything we’ve said is a lie and there is indeed a group of 2-4 individuals who can come together and create this kind of magic together. Then, when the act gets stale within a few years, imagine the group completely reinvigorating themselves once again by bringing in a whole host of new members.
You can’t, can you? Because it’s impossible. DX was that strong that they were able to pull in a number of new members and create a second incarnation of D-Generation X that was almost as successful as the first. Given the nature of how the developmental system works with NXT nowadays, that would just be completely unheard of as they need to be nurtured before being called up.
Sure, you could always do the same thing as DX by picking up any random tag team and inserting them into this scenario, but given how poor the booking has been within the divisions both on Raw and SmackDown Live, nobody would be believable in the role.
Which brings us to our final point: believability. The 50/50 booking and the constant character shake-ups on the current WWE roster make it impossible for us to believe that anyone from the top of the card all the way down to the bottom would have what it takes to be this kind of a renegade.
DX was a one of a kind group, and that’s just how it is. So, you know, s**k it.
Also read: 5 WWE Superstars who were buried by Triple H
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