Old Guard vs. New Blood

[ULTRASTARZZ]

- If the WWE wants to really try something groundbreaking, something new, something that can build up new faces and the fanbase again, I wonder if this would work:

OLD GUARD vs. NEW BLOOD

- Now, I know this has done before in WWECW, and other times but I am talking about the ENTIRE year between two WrestleManias (maybe 28 and 29), across both brands in which this is the ONLY MAJOR storyline going on. I thought since there is simply a ton of relatively new talent in the WWE, it would be a good way to put them over. Here is a rough rundown of how things will work:

a) No matter what happens to Rock/Cena at WM28, a bunch of new guys on RAW will attack him;
b) Over the next few weeks, young talents will attack the veterans;
c) At Extreme Rules, all preexisting feuds will come to an end, with the main event seeing the young guns attack Cena or Orton;
d) The next few weeks will see the veterans have a little talk to try to ease the situation, but the young blood will still unleash all sorts of PG-oriented assaults on them, until ...
e) Almost all of the veterans turn face, and band together to fight off the biggest stable in WWE history;
f) At SummerSlam, only the veteran vs. young gun matches will take place;
g) Then, they can insert the switching of sides, rise of the people that need to rise, until the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania, where the angle will end.

- For me, this kind of storyline will give quite a lot of benefits:

1) It allows the young guns to go over more efficiently. Sure, it may seem a reboot at first that suddenly, all relatively new talents are villains, but the WWE Universe will easily take notice of them. Ultimately, dissension and friction will arise among the group as egos clash as to who should be the alpha dogs of the group. It will lead to some people turning face, and join the veterans and the problem of new faces of the WWE can be solved. The Miz and Jack Swagger can surely benefit from such circumstances;

2) It should rejuvenate the careers of the veterans. Some will be elevated, some will go heel and join the young blood and lead them; either way, chances are a lot of the "forgotten ones" will be noticed again, and they may be pushed to heights they never thought can be reached;

3) The WWE Intercontinental, United States, and Tag Team Championships will be "meaningful" again. Obviously, there will be a feud over dominance, which the titles will represent. The fact that most of the time, a known veteran will battle with a young gun for any of those titles can definitely add prestige to them, aside from a little rub from the veterans to the young guns; and

4) Short-term and long-term, it is a guaranteed good move for the WWE. Short-term? Controversial, hot angle leads to immediate increase in PPV buyrates. Long-term? More stability for new faces of the company will be built, careers will be altered, and new heroes will emerge. We should remember that career-altering moments happened at the biggest stages. Stone Cold needed King of the Ring. Triple H needed the MSG incident. John Cena needed early high-profile feuds.

- Of course, this can only be accomplished with minimal writing errors from the creative team.

Do you believe that an OLD GUARD vs. NEW BLOOD year-long storyline will be great for the WWE?
Do you believe that such angle can actually take place, given the current environment of the WWE?

 

[macho-madness85]

sorry isn't this called the NEXUS???? a case of young talent destroying the older generation, for tv time and also get themselves over? correct me if im wrong lol

 

[Johnny Scumm]

No, it's not "Nexus." But I would like to answer these 2 questions.

Do you believe that an OLD GUARD vs. NEW BLOOD year-long storyline will be great for the WWE?
Never, in a million years. I can guarantee you, a month or two in, I'd have turned off. Who wants ONE storyline for a WHOLE YEAR? Well, obviously, you do, but it's a pathetic idea, it really is. I mean, those Titles wouldn't gain any "meaning" again, because there would just be feuds over them, as usual. Also, we'd have to bring in a load of old Wrestlers who probably can't move round the ring or wrestle, but for a whole year? Oh good god no.

Do you believe that such angle can actually take place, given the current environment of the WWE?
As I said, no. To go against the whole of the young ones, you'd have to find a large crew of old men, incapable of wrestling. Yeah you've got the Rock & maybe Austin, but that's about it. Don't bring Roddy Piper into this, he looked bad on Raw last week.

Lets just set this very straight. This idea is bad, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[nxtgeneration]

i tell you no. pretty simple a whole year aint very interesting.
however i would love it was done from new year to wrestlemania, with a young guy coming out saying its a change in time and a changing of the guard. have a card like
rock v cena
undertaker v barrett
jericho v miz v del rio v bryan
austin v punk
orton v christian
r truth v ziggler
mysterio v sin cara
show v shaq (just a random exhibition)

 

[Dom Nom Nom]

Millionaire's Club vs. New Blood.

This angle sucked to begin with, so rehashing it will just leave an awful taste in the audience's mouth.

 

[Odisho]

i kinda like this angle, but a whole year? it would become un interesting if its a whole year.
but what i would like to see is on a ppv, during both smackdown and raw main events the wwe stars that are lower than mid card heel or face attack the main eventers, they do the same with raw and smackdown. than they keep on saying their sick of being at the end of the line. or sick of not being used and being mistreated (zack ryder) and they keep on fueding and attacking the maineventers, this goes on for 2-4 months.

for the group of lower mid card:

zack ryder(internet champ)
yoshi tatsu
tyson kid
jimmy uso(tag champ)
jey uso(tag champ)
chris masters(us champ)
chavo guerrero
curt hawkins
D.H smith
JTG
johnny curtis
mark henry(hes not being used)
primo
ted dibiase
trent barretta
tyler reks(IC champ)

they can all go on to hold all of the mid card tittles and tag team tittles, they keep on attacking the mid card and upper, and trying to get a main event match for the world tittle. say john cena is wwe champ and randy ortons WHC, zack ryder vs john cena for wwe tittle, and chris masters vs randy orton, they lose the main event and split up, but the tag champs and mid card champs still hold on to the tittles for a while.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

This happened in WCW.. It was at the time when WCW was actually on life support and it was not very good.. You had people who had the most hated rivalrys in the past come together and work in a team? You just can't do that! Not always anyway..

This does fit in to the Nexus storyline catagory.. But yehh, it's not the same thing.. WWE do have a lot of youung stars but now wouldn't be the best time to do something like this..

 

[team extreme]

i agree this did happen in wcw, but they used very old wrestlers who were out of the prime, not orton, cena, or mysterio. They do this in tna all of the time by having the original tna against new tna and it works. I like the idea, but not a whole year.

 

[TUFFY54]

There is a massive flaw in your logic. THERE IS NO OLD GUARD!. Who are the old guys keeping new blood from their spot? Cena? Orton? Miz? Mysterio? Christian? Cena is the babyface hero of the company in his early 30's. Orton is the top face of Smackdown at 30. Miz is a one time champ at 30. Mysterio is a superhero to little kids and the ultimate underdog. Christian is pushing 40 and had one two day run as champ. You talk about the Rock like he is a full time wrestler. He's not. Guys like Kane and Big Show have been around for years, but nobody sees them as the top guys of the company.

The reason the WCW version kind of worked was because they really did have an old guard. Hogan, Flair, Nash, Sting, Lugar, Piper, Hall, Savage and DDP were all in their late 40's or early 50's and had been hogging the main event scene for decades. The WWE youth movement has destroyed any type of old guard in the WWE. Every month we see a new face in the main event picture. The old guard vs. new blood type of angle is about guys wanting to get their shot. Lets take a look at some new blood in the company:

Sheamus-former world champion
Swagger-former world chapion
Ziggler-kind of a world champion and worked title matches for months
Barrett-had many main event and world title matches
Jo Mo - has had lots of titles and will get a huge push when he returns
R Truth - 40 years old and now in the world title picture
Del Rio- main eventer and has had world title feuds
Alex Riley-working huge program with the top heel in the company

These are the type of people that are "new blood" in the WWE, and they have all already had lots of success. The rest of the new guys simply aren't ready for main event level matches.

Your a day late and a dollar short with your idea. 2 or 3 years ago this could have been a huge angle when we actually had an old guard in the WWE. Lets take a look at the people who have left the company/retired or become part time performers in the last couple years.

Shawn Michaels
Ric Flair
Batista
Jericho
Edge
Triple H
JBL
The Undertaker

Throw Kane and Big Show in their and you have one hell of a group. Cena and Orton could have lead the new blood against these guys a few years ago. That would have made for a hell of a storyline.

Thats the problem with your idea. The WWE has tons of new blood, but no old guard.

 

[vthokie8]

This same angle in WCW was awful and such a contrast of styles it was hard to watch. I remember you had Hogan vs. Billy Kidman, Sting vs. Vampiro, and I think the main event program was between Jeff Jarrett and DDP who are about the same age anyway. It just seemed like the younger guys didn't belong in the ring with the older ones based on name value and that the old guys just couldn't keep up with the younger ones in the ring. Not to mention Cena, Orton and these guys aren't old, they have been at the top of the food chain for a long time, but not old by any means. Rey, Big Show, Kane and Mark Henry are probably the oldest guys in age that wrestle every week and even they don't come across as old like Hogan, Flair, Sting, Luger, Sid and DDP did. Vince is way too smart to do this too even if you brought back Triple H and Taker to be a part of the "old guys." I know booking may be bad now, but they are never going to make their talent look old and worn out. What WCW did with this angle was pretty much admit that they were putting out a stale out dated product with washed up talent at the top of the roster.

 

[Joshua]

This has been done many times in many different ways already. Plus I don't see Vince putting all his eggs in one basket with a year long feud. He is a business man and that's just not good business. Maybe when Nexus wraps up something like this could happen but not for an entire year.

 

[Mercer the Ruthless]

It sounds good on paper but it, ultimately won't work. People as whole will just see it as, oh this NEXUS 3.0 and probably get disinterested. I mean it could work but the writers would have to be on their toes everyweek, the young guns would probably have to go unscripted (not too sure the WWE wants to do that); I just don't know if the company would want to take that chance.

 

[Tequila Dave]

Thank you for reconfirming that members of the IWC should never be given creative control in WWE.

Alrite, first of all this storyline has been done to death by numerous promotions over the years. -20 points for originality.

Secondly, large scale stable wars often provoke laziness amongst creative writers and are just overall messy. -15 points for general

It should rejuvenate the careers of the veterans. Some will be elevated, some will go heel and join the young blood and lead them;

Wait, why would the young blood accept the guidance of veterans? -10 points for logic

The WWE Intercontinental, United States, and Tag Team Championships will be "meaningful" again. Obviously, there will be a feud over dominance, which the titles will represent.

-15 points for TNAesque storyline

That's a grand total of -60 points but seriously, this just wouldn't work. A year long storyling line featuring the majority WWE's roster would mean that there'd only be one reason to watch WWE for a year. You need multiple storylines occuring at any given time so that if you're not interested in Cena (which I know a lot of people aren't) you can follow what CM Punk is up to.

Also, as many people have said, this kinda feud has been over done (and it rarely works). Sorry mate, but I don't think it'd be a good idea.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

The idea sounds fun, but the older wrestlers wouldn't retire, and all this would make them do is look weak. Plus, the way the new talent is fast-tracked to the main event these days, it wouldnt really be a big deal to have them winning at the PPV. Guys like Sheamus, Swagger, Riley, Barrett have already been in and around the main event, so it wouldnt be a changing of the guard. Also, there are very few veterans in WWE right now anyway, as guys like Orton and Cena who have been around for years are not even old.

This is not a new idea anyway, its pretty much just a rehash of the WCW New Blood storyline, and Vince Russo has already tried to recreate this in TNA with the Main Event Mafia vs The TNA Front Line, and that was only a moderate success.

Vince will never want to make his legends look weak, they provide him with so much income and are still over. Why would he do it?