This DX Isn’t Cool

By Mike Mooneyham

June 25, 2006

Funny or boring? Cutting edge or passé?

How about just plain foolish.

That pretty much sums up the act that was once DX.

Shawn Michaels and Triple H were the architects of D-Generation X at a time in the wrestling business when such novel gimmicks were fresh and new. So were the stars that made up these groups.

But almost a decade has passed since wrestling fans found such things to be cool. They’ve moved on, in search of the next big thing, looking for new stars and new acts to grab hold to.

And I’ve got three words for you: DX ain’t it.

The official reunion last week on Raw was built around the kind of silly, sophomoric humor that you might find bandied about in a high school locker room. On second thought, though, maybe a junior high locker room would be more appropriate.

A lot of juvenile jokes and lame gags from two guys pretending to be hip and funny. Martin and Lewis they’re not. This act’s closer to Beavis and Butthead.

And then there’s the lack of internal logic behind pairing these two sworn enemies. No good explanation has yet to be given as to why Michaels and Triple H want to be partners again. Has Triple H, the top company’s top heel, decided to abandon his bad-guy persona? Last we checked, Michaels was a babyface, even though the professed born-again Christian has certainly veered away from his stance that he would refuse to compromise doing something that was against his better judgment.

This gig should be against his better judgment for a variety of reasons.

There’s no doubt that Michaels is one of the most talented and accomplished performers to ever step foot in a WWE ring. His overacting in front of the camera, however, is downright annoying. He comes across as an aging 40-year-old trying overly hard to be cool, and maybe that’s because he has a cadre of 20-something writers feeding him his lines. At least one can only hope that’s the case.

Triple H, meanwhile, is quickly losing points on his cool quotient. He seems to have transitioned from a ruthless heel to the company’s latest class clown, a prankster whose goal is to make life miserable for boss Vince McMahon.

Stone Cold Steve Austin’s feud with Vinnie Mac was funny and entertaining. This, at least so far, isn’t.

Sometimes you just can’t go back home. DX was part of a wrestling boom that took the industry by storm. Triple H and Michaels were edgy, but moreover were allowed to project their own distinct personalities. Michaels was a real anti-authority rebel, wrestling’s version of James Dean, selfish and reckless to a fault. Triple H was hungry and willing to do anything to succeed in the business.

Times change. People get older. Michaels has swapped Playboy for the Bible. Triple H married the boss’s daughter and is an expectant father.

Maybe that’s cool after all.

Probably the most anticipated match at tonight’s Vengeance pay-per-view is one which had only a couple weeks of promotion.

The two-out-of-three-falls bout pitting Ric Flair and Mick Foley is a dream match that could have benefitted from weeks of buildup and intriguing interviews.

Instead we get a rush job that fails to fully explain the real-life history between the two. To put any more spotlight on Flair-Foley, however, would only take some of the luster off DX. And that, of course, is a definite no-no, even in Flair’s hometown of Charlotte.

Hopefully the Flair-Foley saga will not end tonight with tonight’s match, but will build toward a blowoff at Summer Slam.

– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson suffered a torn Achilles tendon during a football practice session Tuesday and underwent surgery Friday in Miami.

Johnson was injured while preparing for his role playing an NFL All-Pro quarterback in the movie “Game Plan.” The movie, previously known as “Daddy’s Girl,” was scheduled to start filming on Monday. Production has been put on hiatus, and the studio said it will continue when he can resume his role in the film, though that will not be determined until after surgery and will have to take into consideration recovery and rehab time.

“While this is a setback for our production schedule, we completely support him as he recuperates and look forward to resuming production when Dwayne is fully recovered,” said Walt Disney Motion Picture Group president Nina Jacobson in a statement.

Said Johnson: “I anticipate that with some TLC, pizza and a lot of donuts, I will be making a speedy recovery and will be able to get myself, and everyone who has been working so hard on this production, back to the business of doing what we love most, making movies.”

Johnson said in a recent interview that he doesn’t foresee stepping back into the ring anytime soon.

“I don’t get the itch to go back as much as when I watch the show, I get antsy and frustrated at a lot of things I see. I’m like, damn, I wish they would’ve said this, or I wish they would’ve done this, or I wish this dude would’ve said this in response to that. Other than that, I’m good. They had asked me to be a part of Wrestlemania, but I couldn’t because of the timing of a movie. Besides, if I go back, it has got to make sense. It has to be someone who it makes sense with.”

– Goldust (Dustin Runnels) is the latest casualty on the WWF cut list.

– ECW will do a brand-only TV taping July 4 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia.

– Bill Goldberg confirmed in an interview on the Between The Ropes wrestling show last week that he was still considering joining TNA.

“In all honesty, not to downplay it, but they’d be stupid not to be interested in someone like myself. Not just me, but interested in Brock (Lesnar) and some of the big name guys who are out there and are not working for the competitor. It’s just another way to boost their company. The one that opened my eyes to even considering the fact in getting back in the ring is when Sting signed there. I picked up the phone and called him and said, ‘What’s this all about dude? I didn’t think you were ever coming back.’ If it was good enough for Sting, it was good enough for me to consider.”

“It hasn’t gone any further than me considering it,” he added. “If they want to be a true viable competitor to Vince and they want to shoot for the moon and try to surpass him in every respect, then I may lend my services to them for a short period of time, a long period of time, who knows. I’m 38 years old. I don’t know what I’d look like in those damn underwear anymore … You never say never, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. But who knows. A bunch of my buddies are there. It’s shaping up to be like a WCW roster. It’s kind of that comfort zone that I missed at WWE.”

Goldberg also said he felt like an outsider during his last major wrestling run in WWE. One pleasant surprise, he said, was his relationship with Triple H.

“He was cool. He was cool to me. We were represented by the same agent at the time. Triple H is a smart man. He’s not going to ruffle my feathers. I mean I would have probably killed him. He was very respectful. He was a very good dude. Contrary to my belief prior to signing with WWE, one thing that I can say is he always, to my face, treated me with nothing but respect. He was a good dude. That was one of the pleasant surprises. There were a couple of guys up there that I thought were going to be totally different than they ended up being. Some of them were pleasant surprises.”

– George’s Sports Bar, 1300 Savannah Highway, will air the Vengeance pay-per-view at 8 p.m. tonight. Cover charge is $7.