DX - Did you ever like it?

[cactus]

I thought they were the coolest thing about when I was a kid. Granted, I started watching in late 1999 and my only exposure to their 1997/8 incarnation was on my older brother's DX VHS, but I loved watching them even if their humor went over my head. I was psyched when I heard rumors of them reforming in 2006 and I enjoyed it for what it was. I was just happy to see my old favorites back together again, even if they were even more cringey than ever at this point. Hell, nostalgia even made me sit through their 09/10 run. Looking back, their humor is very immature and there are very few DX moments that I would still find funny today (the 97 public announcement and the 'Stan' sketch come to mind).

[thebrainfollower]

Hate DX as much as Parv.

 

Liked 1-2-3 Kid until he left for WCW, have no use for Dogg, Gunn or Chyna, HHH is my least favorite person ever in wrestling.

Shawn has talent yeah and that's it.

[fakeplastictrees]

The DX stuff does not hold up at all to me. When I was in my teens, that shit was funny and cool. I do not wear baseball hats and the only one I had in my entire life was a DX hat my dad got for me and I loved it. Wore it whenever I could. Always wanted one of the shirts, but never got one. I liked everyone in DX and when HHH and Chyna 'left' DX at WM15, I thought it sucked (no pun). The DX 2000 reunion was cool until it became the HHH/Stephanie and the lackeys (this is after Gunn was kicked out). Everything after that has been weak sauce and I have been completely un-invested. As for the stuff I found so entertaining/cool/funny in 97-99, very few of those things have stood the test of time.

 

There is no way in hell that the DX of 1998 would be able to get over today in the same level they did in 1998.

[MikeCampbell]

I liked the babyface run of 1998-99, when I was fifteen and sixteen years old. Hell, I bought and regularly wore the "Mr. Ass" T-Shirt. But, after Billy Gunn turned heel I was already proclaiming DX to be "dead" with the ranks dwindled to Road Dogg and X-Pac. The late '99-00 heel run is a perfect example of something overstaying its welcome.

[Benbeeach]

Everything from inception to about Mania 15 was gold to me. I was 7 when it formed. Some stuff was over my head at the time, most of it wasn't and it was some real holy shit stuff for a kid at that age. Wrestling got more juvenile and subsequently made me more mature if that makes sense.

Shawn's my favorite ever so I was never going to hate it. I'm real high on the New Age Outlaws. They were always a fun time, until they weren't. X-pac was x-pac. Was always kind of weird not seeing 1-2-3 kid be . . . 1-2-3 kid. That's the role he was born to play, and everything else besides that always felt off. But yeah the comedy, skits, the goddamn THEME music. All worked for me. I have a genuine soft spot for DX

Also always thought it was cool that that DX army were a huge faction but not main eventers together or alone. Was a stark difference from the NWO and lots of factions before and after that ate up huge amounts of TV time and storyline. DX was just really high upper mid card fun.

Not going to bother talking about 2006. That doesn't count

[Jimmy Redman]

Not to mention, there was this time when Shawn and Trips on one leg basically destroyed Edge and Orton; on the next night, Shawn actually beat both of them in a handicap match, which has to be the most pointless burial ever. These two were supposed to carry WWE's heel division for the next decade, and here a run-down past-his-prime old dude made them look like chumps.

 

To be fair to DX (I know, I know) Hunter wasn't supposed to be on one leg - he blew out his quad during the match, there was a DQ and then they used chairs to beat them up, so it's not like they jobbed them out.

 

And that handicap match...I don't blame anyone with DX fatigue hating it, or hating the result but man, I seriously fucking loved that match. It may be my favourite handicap match ever to be honest. It's the most effective presentation of a handicap match I've ever seen from WWE. Normally when they run one they might vaguely talk about the tag team being able to tag in and out and what not, but they just sort of treat it like a kind of wacky tag match. They never really get across the danger of one guy trying to fight two guys at once. So when the one guy wins you're not even surprised, really (also because they usually have the one guy win, but that's another issue).

 

But with Shawn vs Rated-RKO, the escalation of violence in the feud (as you say, the bloodbath was the night before) and the presentation of the match by the workers and J.R. really put over just how much of a suicide mission Shawn was on. There was a palpable danger to it that is often missing in WWE, and they made you feel like Shawn had no hope. So after Shawn got his ass beat, he made one of those glorious Shawn comebacks and pulled it off and it felt like the miracle they were selling it as.

 

So yeah, I mean I get DX hatred and not being into it, and I get that WWE has guys win handicap matches all the time, but if you watch this particular match on its own merits, I feel like they did so much to really earn Shawn's victory. And I don't think it was even remotely close to a burial. Edge and Orton lost the feud, but they weren't buried and really, they turned out fine and both were the top heel on their brands within a couple of months.

 

You can fault DX for a lot of things, but I don't think the Rated-RKO feud is one of them.

[Loss]

Even worse was Shawn and Edge doing that street fight a few weeks later with Edge wearing designer jeans. Everyone knows you wear Wranglers or Levis with kneepads over them and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off to a come-as-you-are street fight.

[Jimmy Redman]

Damn kids these days don't even wear cowboy boots to a street fight!

 

Seriously I love that Edge/Shawn brawl as well. Jesus now I want to go back to 2007. I'm kind of glad I didn't suffer from DX fatigue last time I watched this stuff because I actually enjoyed almost all of that feud, in terms of matches.

[Loss]

I actually do agree it was a very good match. But I just remember laughing at Edge dressed like he was going to fight, then go clubbin'.

[C.S.]

It actually made me a big fan of the Nation, who were far more badass.

 

I, too, preferred the Nation, but I liked DX as well...

 

I'm probably in the minority in thinking that the Triple H/X-Pac/New Age Outlaws version of the group was miles better than the original - with a stoned, stale Shawn as an anchor weighing it down. I actually thought Trips really came into his own as Shawn's sidekick. I was ready for him to take it over when he did.

 

I refuse to acknowledge the X-Pac/Road Dogg/Tori shit version of the group or the "old men who are no longer cool, and realize it, but act like they are anyway" reunion tour.

[Jimmy Redman]

I actually do agree it was a very good match. But I just remember laughing at Edge dressed like he was going to fight, then go clubbin'.

 

Well it kind of fits Edge's gimmick at the time though, he was the Rated R Superstar, he walked around like a rockstar and dressed in what I'd call douchebag chic. So it makes sense that his "come as you are" get up was his fancy jeans and flashy belt and nice shoes. He was literally coming as he was. It's just that guys in the 80s who would "come as you are" looked a lot scruffier.

[Petey]

I was 11 when DX formed, 12 when they hit their peak, 13 when they broke up, and 14 when they reformed as a heel group. You're damn straight I loved DX. I'm also old enough now to realize how stupid and immature they were, but not jaded enough to miss that being the point of the whole thing. They were the edgy, sophomoric, and anti-authority group that a young rabblerousin' Laz could latch onto.

 

Their 2006 "reunion tour" stuff was the drizzling, gaping, most foul shits. It single handedly killed all my interest in the product at the time (at least, it was the last straw) and I didn't come back at all until the Morrison/Punk feud the next year.

I'm a year younger than you and totally agreed with everything you said. As a young pup, I thought DX was awesome. I didn't find any of it embarrassing at the time. I thought they were super cool. My parents also let me wear my DX Two Words Suck It shirt on the last day of 5th grade (June 1998) and I thought that made me very cool.

[scott6173]

As time has progressed, the Attitude Era seems to either be considered a golden era or a blight on professional wrestling. I suppose it depends on the kind of fan you are. Workrate junkies would say the era was marked by poor wrestling and over the top storytelling. Others can say the main events were awesome but early on (1998-99) the mid-card was loaded with poor matches and over the top characters. It wasn't until 2000 when the WCW exodus came that the roster was truly strong top to bottom.

 

Having said that DX was definitely a memorable group with great moments on Raw (particularly during its early incarnation from September 97-March 98) but Triple H did a fine job recovering after HBK left and put together a fun group that made Raw entertaining in many ways. Sure they weren't all workrate marvels but frankly at that time in wrestling history workrate was hard to come by in any of the promotions except perhaps the Cruiserweights in WCW.

 

The 2006 incarnation was made simply to print t-shirts and give two main eventers something to do other than challenge John Cena. It started off ok but by the end of the summer it had definitely outlived its usefulness. Having said that it was no less important to the industry than the NWO was. People can say what they want about the guys in DX having no wrestling ability but the NWO was pretty much 3/4 full of talentless hacks (and that includes the main eventers). However they made money and during that era that was all that mattered: Money and ratings.

[WingedEagle]

Took the bar exam during the summer of '06 and thus missed almost all of the DX reunion tour. Never had any interest in going back to relive it.

 

I may be the outlier here but thought business picked on the original run beginning with X-Pac's return the night after Mania. Never found the original trio all that special. The Hart feud was great as a standalone, but nothing involving Hunter & Chyna at that time interested me.

[MoS]

I am surprised that someone might think that DX were as important as the NWO in wrestling history. DX was over, no doubt, but they were essentially a fun midcard stable at their best, and while they did sell merchandise, I am not so sure it comes close to as much as the NWO did. I could be wrong, though, as I have no figures on hand. But, I mean, Zack Ryder also sold a lot of merchandise; I hardly think he is as important to wrestling as Cena or even someone like Orton.

 

I am no fan of NWO; even at their peak, I think they were overrated. But there is no denying that they essentially changed the landscape of wrestling. From what I understand, the NWO were instrumental in making wrestling "cool" again.

[ButchReedMark]

I think DX being the most important thing ever is possibly one of the WWE's biggest retcons. Look how many times they've pushed that footage of the CNN Towers invasion down our throats. When I was 13 it didn't seem like too major an event and felt like just another skit, but now it's The Most Important Moment In Monday Night Wars History, Vital In Turning The Tide.

[Goodear]

I still break into "Oh you didn't know..." every now and then in the car. I found The Outlaws, X-Pac, Triple H as a face faction to be the most entertaining of the bunch. I thought they were good wrestling fun.

[dedhemingway]

The original DX run fell in my wrestling dark era, which, strangely, was during my HS years and a bit after. I was huge into WWF up until about 1996 when I started playing HS football and wrestling, which took up a ton of my time, and I didn't really start watching again until nearly the brand split (in fact, I think the first RAW when I came back and started following it heavy was the 'Hogan runs Rock over in a Semi' episode), so, going back, I don't really enjoy DX that much, and I might be the biggest HHH fan here (I've loved him ever since the 'Wouldn't wear a cowboy hat to a dog show' promo).

 

The best thing to come out of their reunion was the Survivor Series where they teamed with the Hardys and CM Punk and swept, where it started off with HBK dropping Mike Knox (who I remembered from UPW...) with a SCM, pinning him, and then asking if he was even in the match.

 

I guess I never really had a use for DX. I like each member enough individually, HHH is in my top ten favorites (although not top ten best), HBK is, well, HBK, Waltman is great, Dogg has amazing charisma, Gunn is whatever, but as a group...I dunno, give me The Enterprise from XPW. Kaos, GQ Money, and Veronica Caine did the raunchy sexual stuff way better.

[Laz]

DX was not anywhere near as important as the nWo and that WWE has tried to play them up as such is, as previously stated, revisionist history at its worst. However, they absolutely were instrumental to the turning of the tide. The nWo ran its course by the summer of 1998 and was absolutely looking more and more like your dad and his pals trying to be cool, so here comes a few guys under 35 making dick and fart jokes (keep in mind that South Park was still in its lewd-because-why-not phase and Adam Sandler was still a huge deal) and rejecting all sense of authority, add them as supporting characters to Steve Austin, and voila: the WWF looks that much cooler to the targeted demographic than WCW does. They weren't the reason people tuned in but they were a big part of why they stayed.

[Death From Above]

DX themselves weren't the most important thing but they do encapsulate one of the areas WCW failed badly.

 

I have made it clear I am at best lukewarm on the Attitude Era and it's sophmoric, dirty material. But I think if you remember that time, it's kind of unqeustionable that this "edgy" material made WWE seem much cooler. WCW being a Turner product had certain restrictions, in terms of violence and language (guys having to try and get over saying BUTT because ASS is a step too far) made them feel pretty old fashioned. Turner's product got left behind on this front and their attempts to play catch up were generally pretty bad (getting on hardcore matches way too late, and doing them in the most white bread way possible because nobody could bleed or do anything crazy).

 

I'm not saying this perception was right or wrong. But it absolutely happened, and DX as the poster child for that is fair enough, I guess. They represented the "edgy" WWF that WCW simply couldn't imitate even if they wanted to due to the restrictions of their paymasters. A lot of it was crude garbage, but let's be honest teenage males (and college age ones) love crude garbage, it is what it is.

 

WCW being willing to engage in a game of catch-up that due to their network's rules they couldn't win, was in my view a serious mistake that made their brand seem less unique. They compounded that to the Nth degree by bringing in Russo and opening the gates in a time when interest in that sort of material was already fading, and it was a disaster.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think DX being the most important thing ever is possibly one of the WWE's biggest retcons. Look how many times they've pushed that footage of the CNN Towers invasion down our throats. When I was 13 it didn't seem like too major an event and felt like just another skit, but now it's The Most Important Moment In Monday Night Wars History, Vital In Turning The Tide.

Yeah that really annoys me too.

[goodhelmet]

DX's initial run from late '97 through Shawn's Mania match with Austin was pretty great. Shawn was in all his glory as a douchey heel, and the main event scene with Bret, Austin and later Tyson was just nuclear. Once Shawn left the picture, DX became less interesting in a hurry, and the later reunions were some of the most insufferable programs the company ever ran.

This is exactly where I stand. I thought HBK with HHH as his lackey was perfect and HBK during this run was one of my favorite heels. Once the Outlaws joined (who I loathed more than now) it was all downhill. HHH makes a better lackey than a leader.