Hey Scott,
I wonder why no one ever mentions the late 90’s/early 00’s Kliq consisting of DX version 2.0 (Hunter, X-Pac, Chyna, Outlaws) who apparently had quite some influence over Vince.
According to Jericho’s 2nd book, Chyna’s big push towards the IC title (while fighting men constantly in a believable way…) was due to Hunter being in Vince’s ear alot…also HHH comes off pretty bad during this time, treating WCW newbie Jericho like a freshman in HS basically.
Also the newly formed heel DX in fall 99 always seemed pretty weird and overpushed to me. X-Pac getting the upper hand against Kane all the time? NAO holding the tag titles for roughly 5 months (an eternity during this time)? Chyna winning the IC title on her own while allegedly being a huge diva backstage? HHH dominating all his feuds at that point (Show, Vince, Cactus)?
Seems very iffy to me…no one cares because them times were so successful?
Oh yeah, X-Pac was the WORST during that time with the Kane feud that fizzled out and his heat dying off by the day. But as you noted, long as the money kept rolling in it’s hard to find too much fault with what they were doing. And hey, the best house show I’ve ever seen was in 2000 with HHH & Outlaws v. Rikishi & Too Cool, so I guess we just forgave a lot of stuff at the time.