A Bloodbath Has Begun
By Chris Rizzo
WWF.com
Ever since Gangrel first appeared on the scene a few months ago, people inside and outside the Federation have been asking about the agendas of this macabre superstar. When Gangrel recruited his former adversary, Edge, and the Tortured Soul's brother, Christian, to join him in comprising the Brood, the questions became even more frequent. What is the relationship amongst these superstars? Is Gangrel the leader? What does the Brood want to accomplish here in the Federation?
This past week on RAW (12/14), Brood members Edge and Christian took on the team of Val Venis and the Godfather in tag team competition. The action was fast and furious in this hard-fought contest, but Val and the Godfather emerged victorious in the end. Gangrel instantaneously lost his usually cool demeanor and went on a rampage inside the ring. The superstar, who has been speculated by many to be the leader of the Gothic group, frantically stormed around the ring in disgust, grabbed a microphone, and then announced that the next time we saw the Brood, there would be a bloodbath.
This is when things started getting really strange! The Asian aristocrat Tiger Ali Singh, who was scheduled to take on Gangrel later in the evening, found the word "BLOODBATH" scrawled upon the wall of his locker room. Tiger, having seen the kind of mood the Brood was in already, tried to back out of the match, protesting to Mr. McMahon's associates that he refused to fight an animal like Gangrel. Brisco and Patterson did not let Tiger out of his obligations, though, and Asian headed to the ring to take on the enraged Gothic warrior.
After the hesitant Tiger made his way to the ring, the lights went out and the Brood's music began playing to flashing red strobes. The aristocrat tried to return to the backstage area, but was surrounded by Gangrel, Edge, and Christian, who each appeared from different parts of the arena to trap their prey. As the group ganged up on a helpless Tiger, the arena went black again. When the lights came back on, the Brood had disappeared, leaving Tiger Ali Singh lying drenched in a puddle of what appeared to be blood! Gangrel's promise of a Bloodbath became reality, and the shocked Tacoma crowd stared at the red-coated victim in awe of the Brood's strange attack.
The Brood, already an intimidating force before the incident on RAW, has now truly shown themselves to be an uncontrollable force to be reckoned with in the Federation. But why Tiger? What in the world did he do to unleash the rage of the Brood? Maybe they're jealous of his posh lifestyle and his vast wealth. Perhaps they feel he's the antithesis of the Gothic lifestyle they so enjoy. Personally, I doubt that any of these reasons motivated the Brood. In the past weeks, we have seen a great deal of uncontrollable aggression here in the Federation. This has mostly been in the form of the Acolytes, Faarooq and Bradshaw, as well as the Big Red Machine known as Kane. These men have been on an uncontrollable warpath for weeks. The Acolytes attack everyone in sight, inside and outside the ring. On Heat, they even attacked Team Corporate and the New Age Outlaws at the same time when the Bossman and Ken Shamrock came to assist the Acolytes against Road Dogg and Billy Gunn. Kane has tried to chokeslam Terri Runnels and almost set the Brood on fire after dousing them with gasoline in the middle of the ring!
What does this have to do with the Brood? Perhaps nothing, but in my opinion, it seems very strange that these superstars have all unleashed inexplicable, violent attacks on other superstars who have done no personal harm to them. Will we see more of this in the coming weeks? I feel that we certainly will. Who is next? No one has really tried to confront either the Brood or the Acolytes yet, and I think that it's quite a wise move not to. However, I don't feel that this will matter much to these two fiendish groups, as they will just continue to seek out victims for their seemingly random acts of violence.
The one question I have to ask is just how random are these attacks in reality? Is this just the Brood's way of having fun? Is it a part of the Gothic lifestyle? Are the Acolytes without a real agenda as well? Should they all be committed like Kane? Only time will tell.
