February 11, 2000, 12 wrestlers, including African American wrestler Hardbody Harrison and Japanese-American manager Sonny Onoo launched racial discrimination lawsuits against WCW, charging that, as a result of their ethnicities, they had not been pushed, had not been paid as well as other wrestlers and personalities, and had been given offensive gimmicks. It has since been speculated that these charges led to fellow African American Booker T winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship later that year, and his real-life brother Stevie Ray being made a color commentator; Stevie Ray himself acknowledged that it may have been a factor. Onoo claimed that he had been given a disrespectful gimmick and that his final salary—$160,000—was only half of the average pay for a wrestler at that time. Final year (2000–2001) In April 2000, with ratings hitting new lows, Russo and Bischoff were reinstated by WCW. In another attempt to get WCW's creative product turned around, they decided to "reboot" WCW into a more modern, streamlined company. All angles taking place at the time were immediately dropped and all championships were vacated. The first major storyline to take place following the reboot saw Bischoff and Russo form an on-screen union that stood up for the younger talent in the company (which they dubbed the New Blood) in their battle against the Millionaire's Club, which consisted of the older, higher-paid, and more visible stars such as Hogan, Sting, and Diamond Dallas Page. Though initially well received, reception to the storyline quickly declined when the New Blood were cast as heels against the face Millionaire's Club. Many saw the casting as an attempt to gain sympathy towards the veterans, in spite of the already bad reputations they had gained behind the scenes. The New Blood was disbanded before their eponymous pay-per-view event, New Blood Rising. Although neither was a trained wrestler, both Russo and actor David Arquette each won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the latter in order to promote the film Ready to Rumble. Arquette was vehemently against winning the championship, believing that fans, like himself, would detest a non-wrestler winning the title as neither looked physically capable of defeating actual wrestlers in a match. In WWE's The Rise and Fall of WCW documentary, Jim Ross said that Arquette winning the championship was a "farce" and an "embarrassment", and David Crockett, the brother of Jim Crockett Jr. who worked as one of WCW's backstage