Gangrel On When He First Pitched Vampire Gimmick To WWE, Edge & Christian, Bloodbath Idea
Gangrel recently spoke to Andy Malnoske of Wrestling Inc. about working with Edge and Christian. After working together in The Brood, Edge and Christian both went on to have great careers in the WWE, for which Gangrel said he's proud of them.
"Edge and Christian, they're both awesome individuals. I wanna say this, I'm so proud of them and the way their careers went," Gangrel said. "It's sad that they ended so early, but they're good Canadians, they're good with their money and they knew what to do so they're well-off. They're doing alright and they're very happy, so I'm very proud of them."
Gangrel revealed that he had actually pitched his vampire gimmick for years before it was actually approved. After seeing the 1987 film The Lost Boys, he was inspired to create a faction of vampires. Gangrel commended Edge and Christian for getting over with the gimmick, and he also praised their rivalry with The Hardy Boyz for helping them propel further in their careers.
"It was amazing, I was a big fan of the movie The Lost Boys so I was constantly trying to push the whole thing about a group of vampires. From 1991, I was trying to convince them and finally in '98 they said, 'We get what you're doing, we get what you're saying, we'll do it.' That was with Christian and Edge and it was an amazing time, they're amazing talents," Gangrel said. "And the Hardys, I don't think The Brood could've been The Brood without the Hardys because they made The Brood, that feud altogether. The ladder matches with them made Christian and Edge 'E&C' and go off in their careers. So they're great, I'm happy for all four of those guys."
One of the trademarks of The Brood was to give their opponents Bloodbaths. The lights in the arena would turn off, the flashing red lights of Gangrel's entrance theme would come on, and then the arena lights would turn on again to reveal the opponent covered in "blood." Gangrel explained that the Bloodbaths were inspired by another movie.
"We were sitting there one day and, truth be told, we nicked it from the movie Blade," he said. "We had an early viewing of Blade before it ever came out and there was this really cool scene where they were in this meat locker and they were all partying and the lights went out, the sprinklers came on and blood came out, and this banner said 'Bloodbath.' I said we can do that and Edge was like, 'Yeah, let's do it.' From there on we twisted it to our own deal and then you had the Bloodbath. It was hard to do, it wasn't easy to do, but it was amazing and fun."