Bruce Prichard Talks Importance Of Sean Waltman Joining D-Generation X
It’s hard to think about D-Generation X without Sean Waltman, who had a big impact on the group from the day he joined it after WrestleMania 14.
The night after WrestleMania 14, Shawn Michaels was gone due to a back injury while Triple H and Chyna were left alone as the only members of D-Generation X in WWE. Triple H would go on to introduce one of his best friends, Sean Waltman, who WWE fans knew as 1-2-3 Kid and WCW fans knew him as Syxx (or Syxx-Pac).
When he got the microphone in his hands, Sean Waltman delivered the best promo of his career by ripping on WCW and pledging his loyalty to WWE and DX.
Waltman “jumping” from WCW to WWE was a big deal at the time because plenty of guys had jumped from WWE to WCW, but not as many big names were going to WWE. Having Waltman go back to WWE and bash WCW made WWE cooler at a time when Steve Austin had just become the WWE Champion and The Rock was a megastar on the rise. This really was the point where the tide was turning with WWE becoming more popular than WCW again.
On a recent episode of Bruce Prichard’s “Something to Wrestle” podcast, he covered the career of Sean Waltman aka X-Pac. Regarding X-Pac’s post-WrestleMania 14 Raw promo, Prichard called it a turning point in the battle between WWE and WCW.
“It’s historic, from the point-of-view of somebody else coming from the other side [WCW] — and this was the turning point. This is where people were going, ‘You wanna play big boy? Let’s play.’ And, we started to play.”
As Bruce continued, he spoke about X-Pac joining DX helped the group a lot.
“I think it was timing and just the overall combination. It wasn’t any one person. I think we would have done just the same ratings without him. I think having him definitely added big time to DX and to the product, but I don’t know if that [Waltman’s WWE return] was the turning point. I think it was the way we handled it, the invasions we did — in a non-traditional way that DX was presented in and the things they did.”
Sean Waltman Is A Two-Time WWE Hall Of Famer
There are not many wrestlers that have two WWE Hall of Fame rings without being inducted as an individual, but Sean “X-Pac” Waltman has that. It’s because, in 2019, Waltman was part of the D-Generation X induction along with Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and the late, great Chyna.
One year later, WWE announced the New World Order would be inducted into the 2020 Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, that was the Covid-19 year, so there was no ceremony and the NWO’s Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Waltman were inducted in a ceremony in 2021 in front of no fans.
Waltman has yet to be inducted for his singles career in WWE, but it’s also not a lock that it will. Whether it does or doesn’t, he already has two Hall of Fame rings, so that’s pretty impressive already.