8 WWE Reboots That Failed Horribly

Sometimes it is best to leave the past alone...

shawn michaels triple h dx
WWE.com

If there is one thing that modern mass media has something of an obsession with, it's taking things that worked in the past and rebooting them for the modern age. Not a year goes past without some long dead movie franchise returning to our screens, shinier and perfectly watered down for a generation of consumers who weren't around for the first run.

Professional wrestling isn't immune to this, but professional wrestling also does it in an altogether more frustrating manner. Old gimmicks and teams aren't rebooting for the modern age in order to introduce them to a whole new audience, no, more often than not an old tag team or faction is dug up from the grave because a creative team are out of ideas.

It's either that or the fact that an individual's career is floundering, so the creative team once again goes back to the well from which they came in the hope that water is still springing. More often than not, there is no liquid left.

It isn't just teams and stables, World Wrestling Entertainment has tried to do this with an entire promotion. It is best to leave the past alone, Vince.

Here are 8 WWE reboots that completely failed...

8. The New Blackjacks

shawn michaels triple h dx
WWE

A lot of one's opinion regarding the relative success or failure of a reboot will depend on how much the viewer was aware of the original reincarnation of whatever team is being resuscitated. Now, I wasn't lucky enough to see The Blackjacks in their 1970s heyday, mostly due to not being alive, so when Barry Windham and Justin Bradshaw teamed together as The New Blackjacks in 1997, I was pretty much all in on the team.

And why wouldn't you be? Two big guys, wearing black and beating folk up, There wasn't much to like, but there wasn't anything to dislike either. Well, unless you were a little older and could remember Blackjack Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza wrecking shop in the 1970s of course.

The New Blackjacks weren't helped by the obvious homage of the team, and disbanded less than a year after coming together.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.