10 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE Raw From 1997

3. The New Age Outlaws Sucked Pre-DX

New Age Outlaws 1997
WWE.com

Apologies, Outlaw-lovers, but it's true.

Before they joined up with Triple H to form a new version of D-Generation X in 1998, both Billy Gunn and Road Dogg were struggling to get over. It didn't help that their pre-tag gimmicks ('Double J' Jesse James and Rockabilly) had been received poorly by an audience tired of such hokey horsesh*t.

So, the New Age Outlaws were born, but things didn't get off to a hot start. Their entrances played before silence, and their one-note feud with LOD (during which they renamed the spike-wearing squash-match-machines "OLD", because... well, you get it) was sagging by the end of the year.

It'd take DX catchphrases and a babyface turn to make the Outlaws workable. Before that, the WWF could've been forgiven for thinking they'd made a mistake by shoving both singles flops together because they had no other ideas for them individually.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.