Invasion 2001 WWF/WCW

parker kent

citytillidie wrote: »

I read that there is to be a rumoured WCW angle since Wrestlemania is in the old WCW stumping ground. Signing Nash and Booker T, Sting would give that angle way more credit than the 2001 angle

Yeah that has been doing the rounds for a while. Rumours of an Old School Nitro taking place as well. I'm sure a few WCW guys will enter the Hall of Fame too. Sting might next year.

Still think the biggest waste of an angle was the Invasion. It should have been the greatest angle ever and should have led to the creation of a third brand or a WCW controlled Smackdown.

CMpunked

parker kent wrote: »

Still think the biggest waste of an angle was the Invasion. It should have been the greatest angle ever and should have led to the creation of a third brand or a WCW controlled Smackdown.

Hang on.

The invasion angle was a great angle.
It was built as a feud that went beyond wrestling. You dont get bigger than that, in wrestling.
Vince was never going to allow anything substantial come out of something he was creating as a way to promote how much better of a better spectacle that WWF was over anything else.
Also at the time Goldberg and sting wouldnt go to wwe so what they done with what they had was fairly perfect.

The whole angle with Flair being "Co-owner of the WWF" was also brilliant. The whole angle went on for the guts of a year and was promotion wide, it was what you could call, the last of such angles to happen before the brand divide.

parker kent

CMpunked wrote: »

Hang on.

The invasion angle was a great angle.
It was built as a feud that went beyond wrestling. You dont get bigger than that, in wrestling.
Vince was never going to allow anything substantial come out of something he was creating as a way to promote how much better of a better spectacle that WWF was over anything else.
Also at the time Goldberg and sting wouldnt go to wwe so what they done with what they had was fairly perfect.

The whole angle with Flair being "Co-owner of the WWF" was also brilliant. The whole angle went on for the guts of a year and was promotion wide, it was what you could call, the last of such angles to happen before the brand divide.

It is widely regarded as being poorly executed. By Survivor Series, "WCW" were represented by numerous WWF guys and had morphed into the Alliance. Bringing in ECW was not necessarily a bad move, but the execution was poor. It very quickly became a feud between various factions controlled by various McMahons. Not exactly a feud between the two biggest wrestling promotions in North American wrestling history.

When they bought it, the idea was to create a separate show for WCW. They panicked due to the poor reaction to the Bagwell/Booker match.

CMpunked

parker kent wrote: »

When they bought it, the idea was to create a separate show for WCW. They panicked due to the poor reaction to the Bagwell/Booker match.

Well of course they did.
And a WCW show? Look at TNA!




I loved the invasion angle personally. And the massive buys it got shows at the time it was quite awesome.
If you want to over analyse it and go into specifics then i can understand you saying it was a flop but with the approach they took to it i think it came off as a brilliant angle.
Factions being controlled by mcmahons were bound to happen seeing as they 'Owned' those particular people.

jaykhunter

CMpunked wrote: »

The invasion angle was a great angle.

Wait what?

parker kent wrote: »

It is widely regarded as being poorly executed.

This is what you mean CM right? Like it's the biggest storyline in the history of any wrestling company; and it was botched so horribly that it was dead in the water only a few months down the line. Vince made sure to bury all in-coming WCW talent and make them look so weak; hurting his own company and dropping tens of millions of dollars in potential revenue. What a mark.

I can't imagine WWE would be in this slump now had they booked the fresh incoming talent well.

I couldn't agree more that WWF should've put all WCW talent on SmackDown after WMX7 and build them up separately until they could get more stars (nWo, Mysterio, possibly Sting etc) and start the invasion one day after WMX8.

Did you notice that WWF's storylines also took a big hit when they bought WCW? They started booking that comedy love triangle with Austin, McMahon, Angle?

gimmick

Split from 21/02/2011 thread.

CMpunked

Ok maybe i am looking a bit with rose tinted glasses.
When i remember it i was at the height of my markishness.

I genuinely believed that had WCW won, wwe was gone.
I know, I know.

But i want to have a look at each ppv now from the era with all my current knowledge and see the things i took for granted then.
It was a great time to be a young fan at the time i guess.

jaykhunter

Ha, i know others who loved the angle as well; i didn't see any WCW outside a few tapes here and there so i was ecstatic to see any WCW wrestlers cross over!

I remember being angry for years at Taker/Kane for burying Kronik at Unforgiven 2001 but i recently re-watched the PPV and Kronik gas out really quickly and were so sloppy! Holy god KANE had to carry people! :pac::pac:

I was really just disappointed in how they treated DDP and Booker T; dudes were main-event WCW guys

Ha, i thought for the laugh WWF should've listen the raw post-survivor series in the TV guide as "WCW RAW" :cool:

Bounty Hunter

Was the sole thing stopping Goldberg, Sting etc singing at the time money? seing as it wasnt till later that the reason often used by Sting of WWE mistreating WCW talent would have been most evident

Penn

I loved the Invasion angle too. I thought it was brilliant. Were a lot of WCW guys buried? Yeah. Cos from what I saw, a lot of them were pants anyway. This was 2001. WWF ha already signed a lot of WCW and ECWs best talent. Admittedly, DDP and Booker T could have been far greater and pushed a lot more, but overall, most of the talent which was brought over were pretty poor. And Vince was right not to pay big bucks to get some of the bigger names in. And not only that, but a lot of the people brought in, there was already someone like that in the WWF.

As for a lot of the WWF guys moving over to The Alliance... Yeah. It's called a swerve. A) It provided unpredictability. It allowed for heel/face turns. C) It gave people a push. D) It helped fill the gaps that The Alliance had by not having a lot of big names.

Could it have been done better? Yeah. But I fail to see how it was such a major letdown for people. WWF was never going to lose. And more importantly, while they had to look as though they were under threat, they couldn't be made to look weak. But I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Degag

I think it's easy to overanalyse things like this. I was about 14 or 15 around the invasion angle and remember it being the best thing ever. 10 years later, it's easy to say that it was shít because we all know more about the industry now. We know the reasons why Sting, Steiner, Goldberg didn't sign etc. It certainly seemed a lot better thasn it probably was, but that's always the same when you're a kid compared to when you are an adult. It was good then, that's all that matters!

CMpunked

jaykhunter wrote: »

I was really just disappointed in how they treated DDP and Booker T; dudes were main-event WCW guys

Ha, i thought for the laugh WWF should've listen the raw post-survivor series in the TV guide as "WCW RAW" :cool:

"Let me, Help you, help me!"
:pac:

His angle with sara was quite strange, like how he became 'obsessed' with sara after being around her for about a week?..
But yea, "Thats not a bad thing..... Thats a good thing....!"

My step brother reassured me that he had looked at the tv guide on the saturday and it marked raw as WWF monday night raw and now WCW. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

jrochie

I really wish they had kept WCW alive as a completely separate show. The fact that they had lost TV probably didnt help the whole thing, plus that absolutely brutal Booker Vs Bagwell match really killed any chances of it happening.

Imagine if McMahon & Co. has invested heavily in WCW after they bought it. Gave them their own budget, writing team etc and found them a decent TV slot, then ran it as a department of the company, competing with RAW & Smackdown, but all still under the WWE umbrella.

Instead he pretty much buried all the WCW talent, and completely ruined the WCW brand!

jaykhunter

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Was the sole thing stopping Goldberg, Sting etc singing at the time money? seing as it wasnt till later that the reason often used by Sting of WWE mistreating WCW talent would have been most evident

Sting gave the reason that he saw how badly Booker was being...well, booked, and said it's not for him. Of course he also had the "I hate Vince McMahon for running the territories out of business" as well. But he also had a guaranteed contract.

With Goldberg, Nash, Hogan etc they still had a year left on their contract (which was with Time Warner, not WCW) so they elected to just sit it out, heal their wounds and collect a paycheque. WWE could've bought out their contract but it'd cost WWE money and WWE would only pay 50 cents on the dollar (i.e. come to work for half the pay)

A year later their contracts were up so that's why we saw the nWo come in when they did.

jaykhunter

Barrington wrote: »

As for a lot of the WWF guys moving over to The Alliance... Yeah. It's called a swerve. A) It provided unpredictability. It allowed for heel/face turns. C) It gave people a push. D) It helped fill the gaps that The Alliance had by not having a lot of big names.

I'm really glad you saw the positives in it but I just took ECW having to join WCW to be a threat, and Angle, Austin etc having to defect to WCW to beef up the numbers as a huge sign of weakness. Did any WCW guys jump to WWF? Nah they had far too many main-eventers already!

I don't think any WCW wrestlers were helped by the whole invasion angle; i.e. they were worst off post-Survivor Series than in June when they started.

What didn't help was having the affair being one-sided. It's very hard to have compelling TV when one side is obviously going to lose /the result isn't in question (like last Sunday I didn't doubt Miz and Edge would retain; so I wasn't that interested).

It was a bit saddening that they turned the WWF/WCW affair into a McMahon feud with Shane and Steph; maybe Linda could've brought in the nWa :pac: ....stinks of WM2000 with the awful build-up of "A McMahon in every corner"

Definitely a huge problem was starting the invasion way before they had enough talent. And booking them as faces!!

Remember, i is for invasion :P

Melion

I remember logging onto rajahwwf.com the Tuesday morning after ECW reunited. Honestly, that was the most excited ive ever been reading something on a website. I think i still have that Raw on VHS, can still remember most of Paul E's promo annoucing ECW were back

Melion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLWPP4Njpvg

Skip to about 10 mins

Rjd2

jaykhunter wrote: »

Sting gave the reason that he saw how badly Booker was being...well, booked, and said it's not for him. Of course he also had the "I hate Vince McMahon for running the territories out of business" as well. But he also had a guaranteed contract.

With Goldberg, Nash, Hogan etc they still had a year left on their contract (which was with Time Warner, not WCW) so they elected to just sit it out, heal their wounds and collect a paycheque. WWE could've bought out their contract but it'd cost WWE money and WWE would only pay 50 cents on the dollar (i.e. come to work for half the pay)
.

While its a shame they didn't get those guys if they had it would have been nightmare dealing with so much politics and egos backstage.

Imagine if Hunter had been fit as well at that time....:eek::eek::eek:

Cherry_Cola

Melion wrote: »

I remember logging onto rajahwwf.com the Tuesday morning after ECW reunited. Honestly, that was the most excited ive ever been reading something on a website. I think i still have that Raw on VHS, can still remember most of Paul E's promo annoucing ECW were back

Ha I was the exact same. Frantically called all my friends to tell them and begged the parents to let me get sky sports which they did thankfully! Amazing times.

Penn

I think some Alliance guys were helped by the Invasion. Chuck Palumbo was put in a great (and interesting) tag team. Shane Helms became The Hurricane. RVD wasn't even on telly before the Invasion and got a great push due to his popularity.

Who from all the guys brought in during the Invasion really deserved a push but didn't get one apart from DDP and Booker T and the guys mentioned above?

As for Austin, Angle etc joining the Alliance making it look weak, I don't agree with that. Surely they joined the Alliance because it DID look weak and them joining it was to make it look stronger than it was. At the end of the day, business sometimes dictates storylines, and if Vince couldn't get some of the top WCW guys in, he had to make do with what he had.

I never watched WCW, but I can honestly say that I don't remember anyone who was brought in for the Invasion storyline and was released afterwards who I missed. Some of them were rehired later and still failed to make any headway.

Plus, WWF was missing Benoit and HHH (and I have a feeling I'm forgetting someone else). They could have also had a big impact on the direction of the invasion angle.

Melion

RVD should have got the world title when he was easily the most popular guy in the company, that was the main problem i had with the whole angle.

Cactus Colm

I enjoyed the Invasion when it was on. I wasn't really aware of who was who on the WCW roster at the time, had heard of the likes of Scott Steiner and Booker T, and was aware of a few others like Palumbo and O'HAire. But people like Kidman or Shawn Stasiak, no idea.

Then you get the likes of Buff Bagwell and Kronik phoning in matches, and it was hard to be impressed. I remember the match with the Bros of Destruction v Kronik, and thought it was gonna be great, two big guys that will finally be able to go toe to toe with Kane and the Undertaker. Disappointed.

Although Palumbo and O'Haire did a decent job.

To say that the WCW roster was weak, was to make a huge understatement.

I was much more aware of the ECW side of the roster.

parker kent

Degag wrote: »

I think it's easy to overanalyse things like this. I was about 14 or 15 around the invasion angle and remember it being the best thing ever. 10 years later, it's easy to say that it was shít because we all know more about the industry now. We know the reasons why Sting, Steiner, Goldberg didn't sign etc. It certainly seemed a lot better thasn it probably was, but that's always the same when you're a kid compared to when you are an adult. It was good then, that's all that matters!

I did the Junior Cert in 2001 but still thought it was horribly executed. Sure I might have been an unusually smart fan at that age, but it was just horribly undertaken.

There are so many ways it could have been better. Turning it into yet another McMahon family soap opera was a terrible, self-interested decision. It basically became a chance for Vince shít all over WCW at Survivor Series. It has to be the single worst example of self-interested, short term booking I have ever seen.

Imagine if they had just carried on as normal after they bought WCW and ECW folded and they integrated the various workers over a few months into the Raw and Smackdown rosters (like happened after the Invasion debacle anyway). Then after building those guys up, giving fans a reason to care etc, they combined them with the likes of Sting, Goldberg, Steiner etc when their contracts were up. The arrival of WCW could have been played out exactly like the arrival of the Nexus. Have them arrive and destroy the Raw set and have the very last act of the night be somebody spray painting WCW over the WWE symbol. They could have used something like the NWO secretly buying the rights to WCW (ignoring that we know in the real world Vince did) and that Hogan was launching a new, improved WCW.

We already know from Vince's ECW, NXT etc that Vince could get a TV deal for a new show.

partyndbs

its weird how long ago it is, it doesnt seem like 10 years ago :0 i was 10

ManofStraw

I loved the invasion angle, I thought the angle started out great when the invasion on Raw came out of nowhere and I got to watch every week all these new wrestlers I had only seen several times previously. Not to mention that Paul E did a great job hyping the entire thing, I have always loved the way he said GORE,GORE,GORE. Not to mention that the invasion angle produced some great matches such as RVD and Jeff Hardy in a ladder match

starviewadams

I loved the early parts of the invasion up until the Invasion PPV when Austin joined the alliance.I was only 13/14 at the time but I knew that there was no way the WWF were going to present the WCW/ECW guys as a credible threat.Guys like RVD,Lance Storm,Kanyon,Booker T and DDP should have been pushed to the moon but were either set up to fail or were treated as midcarders at best.

If only Vince could have put his ego aside and do what was best for business instead of childishly burying the WCW/ECW guys.

jaykhunter

Yeah, definitely. WCW running this angle (the nWo was supposed to be the WWF invading; the idea to create two separate entities) didn't start losing steam until 18 months down the line (after Starrcade 97; and arguably lasted 3 years since PPVs didn't start landsliding until mid 99). WWF started, buried and finished the feud in 6 months

Lord TSC

Ah, the Invasion. looking back, I agree it was messed up but at the time, I was a 13 year old mark. I had never seen much of WCW beyond two snippets of Nitro I had seen over the years (both involving Jericho, so I was delighted when he signed up) and ECW was a non-entity for me. As such, I didn't really think about how Vince was booking them or the backstage politics. I was just glad to see MY WWE guys beat the crap out of those guys who thought they could invade the show I loved :P

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

Yeah, definitely. WCW running this angle (the nWo was supposed to be the WWF invading; the idea to create two separate entities) didn't start losing steam until 18 months down the line (after Starrcade 97; and arguably lasted 3 years since PPVs didn't start landsliding until mid 99). WWF started, buried and finished the feud in 6 months

How much of the blame lies with WWF though? Nash tore his quadriceps, Hall got drunk on a flight and then fired, and Hogan was so over with the fans after his WM match with The Rock that they had no choice but to turn him back into his Hulk Hogan babyface character.

jaykhunter

they were all 2002 though; months after the invasion failed. It's all speculation (awesome speculation!) what would've happened if WWF started the invasion in 2002 when they picked up all the biggest WCW stars.

i finished reading the death of WCW earlier in the week - an amazing read; want to start re-reading it. They go thru the 2001 invasion briefly and WWF fobbed off picking up these big stars because 'it would upset the pay scale' although they did just that with a much more muted affect in 2002-3. IIRC, inVasion did 770,000 buys (so almost $31,000,000 gross); which would've paid for all of their contracts; and they could've gave everyone else a nice bonus. Even if the Hall/Nash/Hogan things still happened, done right WWF were set up for new feuds and matches for years to come. Even if they just used up these guys for one year's worth of PPVs, you'd get a year's worth of half-WrestleMania-every-month buyrates (similar to what UFC had in 2009-2010)!

parker kent

Charisteas wrote: »

How much of the blame lies with WWF though? Nash tore his quadriceps, Hall got drunk on a flight and then fired, and Hogan was so over with the fans after his WM match with The Rock that they had no choice but to turn him back into his Hulk Hogan babyface character.

The Invasion was long since dead before the NWO arrived in the WWF. The above post makes an excellent point, compare the invasion of the NWO in WCW to that of WCW in the WWF. Then think that WCW could only infer that the NWO were meant to be the WWF (invading from up North etc), whereas Vince actually owned everything related to ECW and WCW.

It was a travesty that they ballsed it up purely out of ego.