The New Blood

Sure he is pretty to watch fly over the top rope...but main eventer??

Think back to WCW in the year 2000. Don't think too hard or your nose will start to bleed. But just try to get a picture of what was going on with the company. In simple terms, things weren't going very well with WCW losing money and the talent losing moral. Kevin Sullivan was booking badly so managment decided to bring back Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo...the booking dream team... who were both sent home months earlier, in order to turn the ship around.

But Vince Russo did have a unique idea. Something that had never been done before in the history of the business. That idea was dividing the roster in half. Now that has been done plenty of times before, too often in fact , but never have the rosters been divided in such a way that Vince Russo dreampt up in 2000.

On one side, The New Blood. On the other The Millionaires Club. Take all the legit superstars on one side of the fence...and on the other you put all the hungry talent that has been held down by their superstardom aka egos.

I was going through my awesome wrestling dvd collection and ran across WCW Slamboree 2000. The opening segment had The Millionaires Club tour bus pull up to the arena. One by one the wrestlers came out... Ric Flair, Sting, DDP, Terry Funk, Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, Curt Hennig, Randy Savage (what is that like 40 world title reigns combined??) All of these names, on the same page, teaming up for survival of their 'spots'. And I marked out like a little girl seeing John Cena perform the five knuckle shuffle.

The idea is simple, take all the greatest stars on your roster...have them form an alliance to fend off the talent that wants what they have had for years. Simple yet awesome.

So why didn't it work? The names I just laid out for you that were walking off that bus are some of the greatest names to ever lace up a pair of wrestling boots.

Flair, Sting, Hogan, Savage? IT HAD TO WORK!!!

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But it didn't.

Business didn't turn around and moral didn't get any better. In fact WCW folded despite a creative idea that could have made them #1 once again. But it didn't...and here is why.

-The New Blood just didn't have enough legit stars. I mean when your pitting Billy Kidman against Hulk Hogan...there is something wrong. I like Kidman, he is a nice talent who can carry an average match with almost anybody. But Jesus Christ. I don't care how Hulk Hogan was portrayed at the time, he is the biggest name in the history of the sport. He has grossed more money than anybody who has ever stepped foot inside of any wrestling ring on any continent. It was obvious that Vince Russo didn't like the guy...fine. Billy Kidman does NOT belong in a feud with Hogan. Forget about Hogan being a legend, he is also a fairly large man. Hogan could use Kidman as a tooth pick. The whole storyline was doomed for failure from the start.

Sure The New Blood had Shane Douglas and Jeff Jarrett and Vampiro, guys who most wrestling fans would recognize. But the match ups just didn't...well match up. I could survive Sting vs. Vampiro because they actually put time into building up that feud. But look at the other feuds WCW was working on.

Curt Hennig vs Shawn Stasiak...what?

Chuck Palumbo vs Lex Luger...what?

Mike Awesome vs Kevin Nash...what?

Shane Douglas vs Ric Flair...what?

Hogan vs Billy Kidman..AWFUL

I know WCW was planning on building new talent which is a GREAT idea. Every wrestling promotion must build new talent in order to survive. But you can't build all the new talent at the same time. Mike Awesome, Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak were put in major storylines without ever developing on their own first.

-Not only did The New Blood not have legit members...but the so called legends in The Millionaires Club hadn't been booked like legends in years. Sting was delegated as a mid card wrestler, Vince Russo tried to kill any credibility Hogan had left, Flair jobbed to everybody and their mothers, Terry Funk was nothing more than a prop in hardcore matches and Randy Savage was barely on television anymore.

I realize the wrestlers were passed their prime, WAY passed their prime to be honest. But these were the guys WCW decided to build their company on...and they weren't booked as if they were the foundation of a federation. They basically only saw them as 'legends' when they needed to split the roster and get the new blood over. If they booked them as legends to begin with when Shane Douglas beats Ric Flair, or Shawn Stasiak beats Hennig...it would actually be a big deal.

So what do you have during 2000. You have a bunch of New Blood that nobody cares about due to the lack of character development, and you have a bunch of Legends who were booked like a bunch of old guys. The bare bones of The New Blood vs The Millionaires Club is genius. Like I said..It's simple, but it's awesome. But WCW didn't prepare for it proplery...and it showed during, and after it all fell apart.