Death From Above

I've sort of gone back and forth in my head over the years about weather having WCW "take over" Smackdown in the short term would have been better, since brand split is a thing anyway. Or if it would be better just to use a smaller stable of guys. I've leaned more towards the second option over time as being probably much more feasible. The other thing that sort of works against the Invasion is that in a lot of theories you'd like to end with some sort of WCW vs WWE Wrestlemania, but because the purchase by sheer chance happened just before Wrestlemania X-7 it's pretty much impossible to make that happen. I don't think you can stretch out the angle a year and make it remotely interesting. WWE clearly didn't think so in real life either. There are actually 4 PPV's between WM X-7 and Invasion, as Invasion is the real life 2001 PPV before Summerslam, which kills most of the momentum from the purchase anyway. In theory, I think you can get 5 PPV out of the angle without it getting terribly dull, starting after X-7, the 5th of those being a blow-off at Summerslam where you can then take whatever guys you're keeping from all this and just run with it from there as normal. I have the blow off sort of worked out in my mind, I'm just getting together how I got there exactly still.

I haven't got all of my thoughts together yet though I intend to ramble on about this later. I will say as a hint as to some of where I'd go, I think they botched this right from the beginning on the last Nitro through to how they introduced WCW being purchased. I also think they fucked up not rebranding Smackdown when they found out no network would take on Nitro as a separate show because it had a rep for losing money. But I'll get to all that later when I've had more time to smooth out some things. There are a couple realities that I think need to be acknowledged, though not necessarily respected totally when it comes to redoing this thing. One, the biggest reason an Invasion could never be perfect wasn't money, but politics. There are certain WCW people that would have been flat out hard to use and control the way WWE would want (in other words, there is no Invasion scenario where WWE doesn't win, which is fine). Second is all those fat contracts. They left too many of them on the table, and while it's nice to imagine using some of them, I don't think using the lot is realistic. Anyway, if this subforum is going to be a thing, there's going to be a thread on this, so feel free to do whatever with it, while I try and get something resembling a readable scenario done myself.

Forget Hogan for president, watching Cornette run would be way better.

Totally different topic, since this is the random thread. To this day, I just cannot envision what The Sheik training Rob Van Dam must have been like.

Someone will have to explain to me how a guy in his 40's with no muscles rocking a mullet still doing an 80's teen blowjob gimmick is "above" working in a strange but successful indie. Fuck if there's one thing you can praise ECW for it's that they gave a lot of older dudes that didn't fit in the big two at least a short run. Morton, Rich, Tommy Rogers, Terry Gordy, Williams, Johnny Smith, Eddie Gilbert, Jack Victory etc etc etc.

Interviews about workers having RESPECT for each other instead of doing things that might actually be interesting is something I now think of as a core feature of TNA looking back over the history.

Williams doesn't even get really good until he spent some time in Japan. He really is pretty green for most of his UWF/Crockett stuff. Hasn't learned how to put it altogether yet. Also his "I'm a tough guy" thing was better for him in Japan with the generally more toned down gimmicks. It was a good environment for him to wind up in. He probably peaked around 1994 with the running stuff vs. Kawada, although he's sometimes great in the early 90's as Gordy's sideman, and getting to work against Hansen a lot probably didn't hurt either. There is one thing I do disagree with JDW on for sure though: Now I don't disagree that with hindsight losing Sting would have been a disaster for Crockett. But I really doubt Sting becomes a big deal in the WWF in that era. Sting would have bombed in WWF. I see no reason to think he becomes anything bigger than Owen Hart in the late 80's. He's exactly the kind of worker who at that point Vince would have either fucked up outright, or just killed off feeding him to monsters. People would have laughed for years at how Warrior got pushed over this guy, but I still see that happening. Warrior is nuts and can't string coherent sentences together, so saying "Sting can't talk" seems harsh, but Warrior's rambling hooked people for whatever reason. Sting at that point trying to promo in the WWF would have been awful. I really don't see Sting faring well if he'd gone to Vince instead of to Crockett. I don't disagree with the basic premise that you want Sting. I do think the idea that he'd have taken Warrior's spot is hard for me to believe.

Can we have a fantasy booking thread or is that considered too Dungeons and Dragons for the cool kids? Because I actually love this shit.

Bossman was a good hand for a long time but he was just put in the wrong role in '99. The HIAC match had no chance of being good, but even less so because I don't think anyone took him seriously as a threat to Undertaker, because Bossman's gimmick was basically "being a lackey/bodyguard to more important people in The Corporation". Which doesn't scream "I'm going to knock off Undertaker". The less said about the Big Show and Al Snow angles the better. Just unfortunate he got saddled with those. Actually in terms of a signing maybe the stranger one for him was ending up in All Japan, complete with pseudo-cop outfit in the early 90's. He had a couple fun little matches there, but it did seem a little weird seeing him still in WWF garb in that setting. Baba seemed to like cowboys and cop gimmicks. Who can say why.

I've mentioned before that I found Luger's shoot terribly disappointing as he basically answers all the political questions with either "I never got involved in that stuff" or "I don't use the internet, what are the saying about me now". But it also does give you some insight there into why this sort of thing seemed to happen to him. He doesn't seem to have any animosity over this sort of thing (and his WWF run went no better), so he doesn't seem like a bad guy, but you got the sense his lack of interest in wresting politics is what allowed this sort of thing to happen. Not that I really hold it against Ric or Hogan or Bret, or for that matter Choshu or Inoki or Triple H or whoever. After all what's the point of gathering power if you're not prepared to use it, from their perspective I suppose. It's just what people do. I just consider it expected from guys in that position.

Condrey/Eaton Midnight Express Kawada/Taue Misawa/Kobashi Lane/Eaton Midnight Express Hansen/Vader just for the "Godzilla Effect", plus I'm a giant mark for both guys. Card subject to change.

What are some really good Iron Sheik matches? All I've ever seen is the Hogan match (which is an absolutely nothing match really), and stuff past that point where physically he's clearly not at what he probably once was. I know he has a legit background and was probably a better athlete earlier on. But I've seen literally none of that.

The Giant! Even better. God, my memory is so fried. And I don't even drink or do drugs. I just come by it naturally. Pro wrestling is cool. Thank you for finding that and alleviating my confusion.

At some point, I remember a WCW Saturday Night main evented by Scott Norton vs. Meng. They basically stiffed the hell out of each other for a few minutes and took turns being big and scary, then a somewhat random locker room clearing brawl with all the million random people Saturday Night used ended the show with people brawling everywhere. I can't find this on Youtube. Did I just imagine this in a wonderful dream?

I wouldn't mind him if he'd stop booking himself to be The Best Long Match Wrestler in WWE©, because he's fucking terrible at it and at this point might be my least favourite long match wrestler in the history of wrestling. He's become a black hole that sucks the heat out of Wrestlemania and Summerslam annually. His promos are bad but it's pretty hard for that to stand out in the scripted era, really. People would have got sick of Austin eventually, it has happened to everyone, but I doubt very much it would be to the same degree. Since honestly I'm not sure there's a single thing Triple H is better at than Steve Austin.

So she's Jeff Hardy?

I honestly think Shawn's a pretty bad promo overall. To me he seems like an all-time leader in just bad lines that make you roll your eyes, or segments where he comes off as pretty insincere at times he really shouldn't. I like him much more as a wrestler on the whole than I do as a talker.

I'm not so sure about that old news bit. A lot of the fans that had turned to Nitro (and I was among them) were people with next to no exposure to early 1990's WCW, and the Steiners in WWF (to my childhood memory) were a team that had come in, had a great run on top, then went out well before they'd burned their credit with the fans there. Personally I thought seeing them again had a lot of cool factor to it. At least I know it did to me at the time. I do think they're not great opponents for the Outsiders more due to styles clash than anything else, but it was still two teams that had that Godzilla vs King Kong feel, as far as WCW went.

I thought it was going to be thread about signs that fans had brought too events . "Syxx? Nein!"

By that standard Al has never had a good match.

Kenzo Suzuki's time in North America fits in this thread too really. He was a somewhat odd choice for WWE to bring over in the first place.

Honestly I kind of wish Vince had run this angle on the last Nitro to kick off the Invasion, instead of the way they eased into it. Can you imagine the nerd rage for that one. "I bought your show, hahaha. Everybody get out." I've never been into Chikara, more the "never got around to seeing what it was" as opposed to the "I hate hipster wrestling" thing you see. Curious what the final payoff is here though, assuming of course there has to be one.

I could never figure out how the Jumping Bomb Angels got in the WWF.

That sort of thing wouldn't be a good idea with the general populous never mind with TNA fans/people looking to troll Dixie Carter.

Admittedly I've never seen any of the buildup to this really, aside from highlight packs. I didn't start watching Nitro until around the Hogan/Piper Starrcade build. So there may be a lot more to the Luger thing than I am realizing, granted.