Was the Invasion always destined to fail?

[JaymeFuture]

This week's SCG podcast is going be a little different, as we are going to do a timeline of the Invasion angle - from the WCW purchase to the bitter end at Survivor Series, with the addition of notes from Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alverez's newsletters from 2001 of what was going on behind the scenes on a week to week basis, and I think it will be a very interesting show to see the breakdown. as it happened, with the overarching theme being whether or not it was doomed from the beginning.

 

I'm looking to get some of your opinions to chime in throughout the show, and as always feedback will be credited to your fine selves on the air, So, I'd like your thoughts on:

 

a) What were you thinking/hoping for when the purchase was announced?

What was the moment the angle died for you?

c) What was your personal high point, if any?

[Grimmas]

I think there is a big myth that the invasion failed due to not bringing in big stars. The problem was not the level of star, the problem was the level that the guys were portrayed as.

 

The invasion could had worked with the exact same talent they brought in, if that talent was made to look like threats. If DDP Diamond Cutted The Undertaker and left him for dead, he would had been a threat. If Booker T beat The Rock, he would had been a threat. Invasions are easy things to book, unless you are determined to make the invaders look not on your level.

[TRMD]

I think there is a big myth that the invasion failed due to not bringing in big stars. The problem was not the level of star, the problem was the level that the guys were portrayed as.

 

The invasion could had worked with the exact same talent they brought in, if that talent was made to look like threats. If DDP Diamond Cutted The Undertaker and left him for dead, he would had been a threat. If Booker T beat The Rock, he would had been a threat. Invasions are easy things to book, unless you are determined to make the invaders look not on your level.

 

I legitimately might be the only human being alive that likes the DDP/Taker feud and the cage match.

 

Also, I agree with this. Even though it may be contradictory given my statement above.

[Timbo Slice]

The reason why any invasion angle works is because they guys coming in are considered threats. If you don't, then you get the invasion angle we got.

[Petey]

a) What were you thinking/hoping for when the purchase was announced?

What was the moment the angle died for you?

c) What was your personal high point, if any?

I was 13 at the time WWF purchased WCW, so keep that in mind with my thoughts back from 2001.

 

A) I thought we were going to get constant WWF/WCW dream matches. Some combos involving Rock, Austin, Hogan and Goldberg. Undertaker/Sting. Really seems endless.

 

The night ECW came back and then got swallowed up by WCW with Steph McMahon as owner was bad. I hadn't watched much of ECW but always thought of them as the "cool/edgy" company and was excited to see them spruce up the angle. I kinda thought it was already flat due to the Booker/Buff match destroying everything.

 

C) The high point is also the ECW night. Even in the following days, I was still curious to how ECW was gonna be incorporated and if they were gonna hire anyone else from ECW besides Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. It was the followup that put a damper on things.

 

Points for the Alliance singing "Wind Beneath Our Ring" for Austin with his head bopping from word to word on the Titan Tron. I actually liked that part better than the actual milk truck incident.

 

I think it was destined to fail. Yeah, it could have turned out better than it did considering the talent they used, but I don't think there was any chance it'd ever live up to the hopes everyone had when the news broke. If they were gonna do it right, they needed Goldberg, Sting, Flair and the like right from the beginning. It wasn't ever gonna happen (and I understand why) due to the absurd Time Warner contracts.

 

I don't think the period/angle was as bad as people said at the time as much as it just happened to be the first major angle to followup the company's most successful period and was probably the face of the immediate post-wrestling boom.

[KrisZ]

There was no way Vince was going to put WCW as equals to WWE.....sure there were reports they were before the Booker T/Buff debacle but in the end it was never going to happen.

[fxnj]

Bagwell mentioned in an interview that if they just waited a week they could have ran the Booker T match in Atlanta instead of the shit Washington crowd they went with that sabotaged the angle before it even started. Based on that, I'm pretty sure the angle was set up to fail from the start.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I don't believe that anyone REALLY would ever "set something up to fail". That makes no sense. He probably thought he could make it work and make money based on the way HE wanted to do it cause he's Vince McMahon, dammit. I seriously doubt he wanted it to "fail".

[iamthedoctor]

Id say yes because McMahon after he bought it was never going to treat it as a equal, it just seemed to be squash it make make WCW sound like its beneath him.

 

For me personally I wanted it back full time under the WWE banner where Smackdown would be changed to Nitro and we got matches where both rosters wouldnt interact with each other unless on special occasions. You would get the odd run in maybe on a PPV or something but cross branded promotions would only happen at say a Wrestlemania type PPV that would last for years.

 

Why in gods name ECW was put into the mix or even Steph running it ive no idea. If they had advertised it as Vince runs one company, Shane runs WCW it would have been awesome but they just shit over it and ran the invasion angle I tended to grow tired of after a while.

[thebrainfollower]

I don't think he wanted it to fail Johnny but I also don't think he understood what he needed to do to make it succeed, nor would it have ever been possible to get him to accept that, namely bring in the top WCW guys and treat them as genuine threats for an extended time.

[NintendoLogic]

Vince clearly has a blind spot when it comes to booking outside invaders (like Flair in 1991 and Lesnar in 2012), but he's far from the only promoter with that issue. Look at how Crockett treated the UWF and how New Japan treated UWFi.

[Loss]

I think the only way we'd ever get an interpromotional feud the way we want it is with third-party booking. Vince can have every honest intention in the world of presenting WCW as the WWF's equal, but he's so intrinsic to his own biases that he likely won't even notice when he's doing something like that. I think that's human nature, it's not even something I see as a huge flaw necessarily. He's just too in the trenches to be objective. Vince needed a week-to-week advisor outside his bubble. He supposedly called Dave at the very beginning to ask him how he would do it and Dave gave him his advice, but Vince went in pretty much the exact opposite direction of that.

[Bigelow34]

Yeah I think Charles nailed it there.

 

Also, DDP shouldn't have even cared about Sara... the original intent was he did it just to get Taker's attention. Once they went back to him actually being obsessed with her is when it went right to shit. Oh, and Taker mopping him up in a brawl at KOTR.

[KrisZ]

I think the only way we'd ever get an interpromotional feud the way we want it is with third-party booking. Vince can have every honest intention in the world of presenting WCW as the WWF's equal, but he's so intrinsic to his own biases that he likely won't even notice when he's doing something like that. I think that's human nature, it's not even something I see as a huge flaw necessarily. He's just too in the trenches to be objective. Vince needed a week-to-week advisor outside his bubble. He supposedly called Dave at the very beginning to ask him how he would do it and Dave gave him his advice, but Vince went in pretty much the exact opposite direction of that.

 

All of this......you would have to have someone booking it with no preconceived notions coming in but of course that person would be working under Vince who would veto whatever the fuck he wanted to.

[BillThompson]

I'm at the point in my Network PPV rewatch project where the invasion has just begun. It is incredibly bungled right from the start, and really outside of the way they manage to turn Angle face, and the influx of new talent, it's pretty much been a disaster so far. Having Steph be the figurehead of ECW instead of Paul Heyman, jobbing out the majority of the WCW/ECW talent to WWF guys, and even when the WWF guys do lose they manage to destroy the WCW/ECW guys post match most of the time, and so on and so forth. It's all so bad, and a perfect example of how not to book an invasion angle. Funnily enough I'm sure if one asked Vince or Stephanie they would say the way they did the angle was perfection.

[fakeplastictrees]

Yes It was doomed to fail from the start. Two reasons: Because one person was so heavily involved and because six people weren't. The person that put the kabosh on anything being TRULY interesting and having legs: Vince McMahon. The missing parties to the biggest angle in pro wrestling history of course were: Hall, Nash, Hogan, Goldberg, Sting, and Flair.The stars WWE did acquire were held hostage by Vince McMahon's ego and his desire to WIN not only in real life but on HIS OWN TV SHOW! Vince playing out his machinations on every Monday night just to show 'them' (Turner, TBS, Bischoff, etc.) that he won was always something that was going to happen unless by court order Vince, his entire family and Vince's stooges were banned from being anywhere near the book.

[JerryvonKramer]

How much was the angle hurt by availability of talent though? All of the big-name guys on massive guaranteed contracts wasn't Vince's fault. You can't present Buff Bagwell as an equal to a top WWF star just because he happened to be around.

 

With respect to them, "Booker T and DDP" doesn't have the same ring to it as "Hogan and Savage". The angle couldn't have worked properly without those big names, and the botch job we got instead is partly a tacit recognition of that from the office.

 

Maybe they could have tried to hold off on it until Hogan and co were available again come 2002/3 sort of time, but that's an awfully long time to keep WCW on life support for an angle, especially if 1. it was losing money and 2. networks didn't want to show it.

 

I think the "Vince's ego" line is a real scapegoat, and a lazy and easy one to make that masks over the reality of the situation. Vince's ego has never had a problem making Vince look like an idiot or be the fall guy on TV if it's going to make money.

[Jimmy Redman]

He can handle Vince the man looking foolish, but not so much WWE the company.

[JerryvonKramer]

But pretend for a second that Team WCW consisted of Hogan, Savage, Flair and Sting, do you really think he would have been jobbing those guys out? Even if he wanted to, it's Hogan, it's Savage, these guys aren't laying down easily.

 

In fact, you could see some sort of twist of Hogan and Vince teaming up as TEAM WWF, either as heels (WE BUILT THIS COMPANY) or faces (remember Wrestlemania I? These WCW guys want to destroy what we built Hulk). Could have any number of Savage, HHH, Foley, Taker, Nash or Hall line up behind them, depending on if you're playing it up as heelish (WE ARE THE COMPANY) or faceish (nostalgia for all the WWF memories)

 

And against them, again either as face or heel, you can have Flair (I always HATED the WWF!), Austin ("I hate YOU Vince!"), and Sting ("I never want to work for the WWF"). Maybe Luger could be part of that team ("You screwed me with Lex Express!" Vince: "Yeah! Well you could never fill HOGAN'S BOOTS anyway!).

 

A dream dream scenario would be to play it where both sides are sort of tweeners, where you can see some of their arguments, and this way you get buy-in from old WCW fans too.

 

That would have been the angle to end them all. But they couldn't run it. They had to run shit involving DDP and Booker T, so what do you expect really?

 

Not so much saying that Vince doesn't have an ego, so much as do you think ANY booker is going to book second-tier stars over their own top talent? No they aren't.

 

All of the aces of WCW weren't playing ball because they could sit at home and count the fat checks. I'm sure the story they ran with wasn't anyone's idea of ideal, but Vince probably wanted to wrap everything up on TV so the buyout was dealt with in kayfabe terms. When the star power was so thin on WCW side, burial seems like one of the wiser options.

 

The dream storyline wasn't an option unless you wait the contracts out.

[kjh]

 

I think the only way we'd ever get an interpromotional feud the way we want it is with third-party booking. Vince can have every honest intention in the world of presenting WCW as the WWF's equal, but he's so intrinsic to his own biases that he likely won't even notice when he's doing something like that. I think that's human nature, it's not even something I see as a huge flaw necessarily. He's just too in the trenches to be objective. Vince needed a week-to-week advisor outside his bubble. He supposedly called Dave at the very beginning to ask him how he would do it and Dave gave him his advice, but Vince went in pretty much the exact opposite direction of that.

 

All of this......you would have to have someone booking it with no preconceived notions coming in but of course that person would be working under Vince who would veto whatever the fuck he wanted to.

 

 

I'm not sure Vince was so much the problem, as the people around him who told him what he wanted to hear in order to earn brownie points from the boss. Apparently, Kevin Dunn was in Vince's ear constantly pushing that they needed to keep the WWE brand strong during this time period.

[NintendoLogic]

Let's remember that the Invasion PPV did more buys than any non-Mania PPV in history, and that was with WCW's B-team. The idea of WWF vs. WCW was enough of a draw that it could've been the biggest money angle in history even with the guys they had.

[Stiva]

I'm not sure it would have ever worked, knowing how WWF, and wrestling in general, tends to struggle with these kind of things but the timing of it has always interested me. I know Taker didn't do great opposite Austin at Backlash/Judgment Day but the build, to Backlash in particular, was terrible and right around May/June was the time they started giving away matches on TV like Austin/HHH vs. Benoit/Jericho and Angle/Benoit in the cage so, yeah, people aren't going to pay for PPVs with underwhelming cards. Would the impact of it be lessened the longer they waited? Did they need to strike when the iron was hot? I always wonder what it would have been like if they had given Austin that heel run through the summer opposite HHH, Angle, Taker, Jericho, even DDP (not as an invader, just a new top guy) and then kicked into the Invasion angle around Survivor Series, with Austin back face, Rocky back, Flair around, maybe even Bischoff in earlier instead of running right off with who they had. Not even a case of Goldberg, nWo, Sting but just a reshuffling of the deck on their own side.

 

To answer some of the questions in the first post, the high-point for me is Austin driving into the arena and cleaning house ahead of Invasion. In fact, I really like that big 10 man at Invasion; it has a massive feel, even with The Dudleys and Rhyno and is front of a hot crowd. Amazingly, the moment it died for me was in the same match when Austin turned on Team WWF. That was it for me, even as an 11 year old and it absolutely started me down the path of not watching wrestling for a year or so when Smackdown pulled me back in with Rey and Eddie doing cool shit.

[WingedEagle]

Let's remember that the Invasion PPV did more buys than any non-Mania PPV in history, and that was with WCW's B-team. The idea of WWF vs. WCW was enough of a draw that it could've been the biggest money angle in history even with the guys they had.

 

This. More buys than any non-Mania PPV ever (and more than many Manias for that matter). More than Sting/Hogan or anything else WCW did. More than any established WWE PPV brand such as Rumble or Summerslam. I also agree 100% that there was almost no way Vince was going to allow a WCW team, or any outsider supposedly representing WCW to look strong against WWE. Hell, Austin got the strongest heel push of anyone associated with the Invasion and he certainly wasn't viewed as WCW guy. A team of Goldberg, Flair, Sting & co. may have done more business on this show, but certainly wasn't necessary and given what they would've cost I imagine you maximize the show's profitability by putting over DDP, Booker T & co. as equals to Team WWE heading into that event.

[Fantastic]

In my opinion, the Invasion shouldn't have happened right away. The WWF should have rebooted WCW with the talent they had acquired from them, along with developmental talent to supplement. They then should have negotiated a new deal with TNN/Spike to air a weekly WCW show, possibly similar to WWECW, featuring the WCW "names" with rising stars.

 

It would be known outside of kayfabe that the WWF is now the owner of WCW, but within kayfabe and storyline, Shane McMahon would be the owner. This would be the only connection to the WWE. Shane might not even have to make appearances on the WCW broadcasts, perhaps having appointed a GM or commissioner. The Invasion would then occur some six months down the line, where WCW (in the best case scenario) has rebooted. Even though it wouldn't be as big as it was before, it would still be WCW.

 

Of course, this would only work if they were treated as a legitimate threat, but then Vince and his cronies might be more susceptible to booking the rebooted WCW as a credible invading force, given that in this hypothetical, that the WWF and Vince were responsible for the reboot and any success.

[Kil]

The Invasion stopped being the Invasion the moment WCW was replaced with "the Alliance," a meaningless heel stable that basically anyone could join. Christian turns on Edge? Well, that means he's Alliance now, despite not being a WCW or ECW guy. And the entire premise of the Alliance, ECW joining forces with WCW against the WWF, made no sense in the first place given that ECW was actually the WWF's ally during the war with WCW.

 

If WCW had stayed WCW, and had just two big more names been there, I think it could have worked. Sting and Goldberg. You don't need Hogan, Hall, and Nash, all guys the WWF audience had seen plenty of who they associated more with the NWO than "WCW proper" anyway. You don't need Flair or Luger or Savage, who had all been in WWF before. You needed the guys who'd never been there, the stars of WCW's own making. An ideal Team WCW at the PPV to my mind would have been Sting, Goldberg, Booker, DDP and then Shane's big "free agent signing" of RVD.