10 WWE New Generation Era Superstars You Totally Don't Remember
Do YOU remember the mysterious Black Phantom? He was a WWE Raw regular!
"It's a new day. It's a new generation".
Those lyrics are actually from Randy Orton's old Legacy stable, but they're fitting here when examining WWE's bid to send the golden age of Hulkamania packing between 1993-1997. Pre-Attitude, Vince McMahon extolled the virtues of his vibrant, athletic (and definitely not red and yellow clad) roster. This was the WWF's NEW GENERATION!
It was younger, fitter, faster and...some of it was bloody dreadful. McMahon might've been brave-facing things, but he was definitely scrambling around trying to catch lightning in a bottle throughout the early-to-mid-90s. Away from the ring, Vince was also under serious pressure from the federal government. The steroid trials were ongoing, and the WWF's product turned into a low-rent, cartoonish parody of itself.
Stars like The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and Diesel kept things going during the lean years, but there are so many New Generation names you probably don't remember. To qualify, everyone here had to work at least one televised match and/or appear in a series of promos/vignettes hyping them up.
How many of these wrestlers do you recall?!
10. Von Krus
Wrestling fans of all ages, say hello to Von Krus.
Some reading this might recognise that mug. It's future WCW regular Big Vito - he also had runs in the original ECW and again in WWE in the mid-2000s. Most people talk about Vito's work under Paul Heyman or on SmackDown, but hardly anyone mentions his time as Krus. He worked way more than you might think.
Krus worked shots for the WWF between 1991-1993. Pretty much all of them were enhancement showings, but he did get some offensive flurries in here or there. At one point, Krus even did the J.O.B for The Undertaker, and he must've thought a federation contract was incoming after wrestling twice on Raw in April '93.
Those matches vs. Tatanka and Typhoon came shortly after WrestleMania IX, so Mr. Krus surely believed Vince McMahon saw something in him. It wasn't to be, at least not yet. The bout vs. Typhoon would actually be his last WWF appearance until 1997.