WWE’s 2001 Invasion Failure
Everything went wrong
The Invasion storyline instantly creates negative receptions with fans when they have to think back at the WCW/ECW Vs WWE angle that didn’t work at all.
Vince McMahon purchased WCW the same year and created a scenario thatr left us fans daydreaming of what to come.
I instantly thought that we were going to get insanely good matches. Matches I only thought off in school. Now was the time to make everyones dreams come true.
Undertaker Vs Sting (In their prime)
DX Vs NWO
DDP Vs The Rock
This didn’t happen.
What we got was the latter. The top WCW wrestlers were nowhere to be found during the storyline. They didn’t want to take part in this Invasion or they just didn’t invite them to come. Maybe Vince felt like some of them being “hard-headed” would ask to win every single match.
WWE ended up just using the WCW mid-carders to fill in the void. Don’t get me wrong, WCW had great mid-card talent. I say the WCW mid-card talent is twice better than todays WWE mid-card talent. But, WWE failed to show off the talent that the WCW wrestlers had to offer, or have offered in the past.
ECW ended up joining in on the fun and they couldn’t even save this train wreck from happening. Again, they failed to bring in the REAL ECW talents. They should’ve had Sabu, Tazz, Mike Awesome, New Jack, Cactus Jack, etc. Instead they settled for “Former” ECW wrestlers who were already in the WWE roster.
What are some things that could’ve change the course of the angle?
Here I’ve devised some of the key points of what they SHOULD’VE done to make this storyline legendary for the right ways.
More Paul Heyman
The man is gifted by the microphone gods. He could never do wrong in any promo. He literally never fails to get a reaction out of the crowd. Heyman is forever top 5 best shit talkers in wrestling history.
Paul Heyman spoke viciously during the Invasion angle about Vince McMahon and how Vince’s father is rolling in his grave due to his son bringing the company he built to its knees. He made the angle a lot more dire for WWE.
Heyman was used heavily during the angle, I just think they couldn’t used him even more. He was just one of the leaders of The Alliance.
I would’ve put Paul Heyman to hijack the commentary table every week. He would punch or shove Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler out of the arena and take over Raw. That’s a good idea.
Don’t try To Relaunch WCW On Raw
One of the biggest banes of the Invasion storyline was that during the same time, Vince tried his hardest to revive WCW.
That was a mistake.
Supposably he was trying to kill the product and get WWE over…yet here we had WCW wrestlers wrestling in a WWE with no consequences at all.
WWE fans were told that WCW talent was superior. That they had more talent than WWE wrestlers.
While some would agree with that. They really didn’t show what WCW was capable of doing. They ended up just bringing in random WCW wrestlers as show fillers. As much as I liked Chris Kanyon…they completely botched him.
With that being said, we got the infamous Booker T Vs Buff Bagwell match on Raw as the main event.
The match started out poorly, was received poorly, and ultimately ended Buff Bagwell’s in-ring career.
At least we had Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle coming to the ring to “Ruin the party” and kick both Buff and Booker T out of the arena.
Use WCW Wrestlers
I can never emphasis enough the fact about how they barely used WCW talent.
This is probably the biggest issue with the Invasion.
Worse is that there was barely any WCW talent on the main team, The Alliance. They had to recruit WWE wrestlers to join the faction. The WWE talent that joined the Alliance were the people who were “done” with WWE and their B.S.
That was a failure.
During the final battle between WCW and WWE at Survivor Series 2001. The only legit person from WCW on the Alliance was Booker T. That was just sad. I mean sure it gave Booker T the platform to be what he became. But, it’s still daunting to me how they couldn’t find more WCW talent to join the main team.
This should’ve been FIVE of WCW’s best versus FIVE of WWE’s best.
McMahon Family Ego
ECW = Paul Heyman, WCW = Eric Biscoff, WWE= Vince McMahon.
So, how did Shane McMahon end up owning WCW and Stephanie McMahon owning ECW?
The question still rattle my mind how they just came to be so easily. There was no backstory or anything. Other than the fact that they both “hated” their father and wanted to rebel against him.
All the McMahon’s had their own egos to check. Somehow they were always invovled in some sort of family feud. One betrays the other, while the other betrays that person and vice-versa.
It was an ongoing circle.
Sure, during this era they did have a lot of frustration with each other and it did make for good television. Maybe it got too bloated too quick.
There was just no need for Shane and Stephanie to be involved in this matter. This was CEO business. They should’ve aligned themselves with their father and HELP save the company. This would’ve been a fresh take on the McMahon family. Instead of just always fighting each other, this was where they would set their differences aside and fight for the WWE.
If anything, I think Eric Biscoff should’ve been brought in to lead WCW. We already had Paul Heyman as the ECW leader. Who wouldn’t have wanted to see Eric lead WCW?
Diamond Dallas Page
DDP was the heart of WCW. He lived by the WCW code.
The way WWE handled DDP is almost a folklore to me. It was a complete mess, and down right disrespectful. Hands down the WORST way to handle someone of that caliber in sports entertainment.
You had this champion who was completely over with the fans. He had the charisma. He had the mic skills. He had it all. So why did they used him in a stalker angle?
To this day it still shocks me.
The worst possible move that WWE could do in that year happened. They really decided to make DDP Undertaker’s wife’s stalker. After a series of snuff films that went off during Raw and showed Undertaker’s wife in the hotel and at home, it was later revealed that it was DDP.
The star power he earned in WCW vanished in a blink of an eye.
How would I have used him? Simple…he would be one of the FIVE WCW members in the Alliance.
No WCW Titles
They brought in the WCW World championship into the WWE. They held a tournament to see who would be the Undisputed Champion.
Big mistake.
WWE at this time was already blotted with championships. They had ELEVEN titles. You would basically expect for thirteen wrestlers to carry a title.
It was pointless to bring in the covenant WCW belt into the mix.
To gain more heat, I would’ve had a segment where one of the WWE team member was in some sort of back alley and threw the WCW belt into a trash can and set it on fire.
That would create MAJOR heat.
No Big Stars
When you think of WCW you think of names like Ric Flair, NWO, Sting, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, etc. These were the big dogs.
Honestly speaking, I thought some if not all of these names were gonna make their debut on Raw every week.
We were disappointed every week.
Due to them having their contracts with Time Warner and not WCW. They were free to just sit at home, watch the program, and get a check for it.
This was the biggest problem of the Invasion storyline.
Not ONE major WCW came to the aid. No Sting, No Goldberg, No NWO. Nothing.
This was the time to bring them in and make it more personal.
Sure, WWE hired all of them eventually. But it was too late. They got hired way after the Invasion ended.
You could’ve gotten old friends going at it because one was loyal to one company, while the other was loyal to the other company. This was the drama we were hoping to see.
It goes to show that sometimes what you expect to happen never happens.
This was a major let down from WWE. It will always be considered an all-time disappointment. Especially with how high WWE was riding at the time. They couldn’t do anything wrong…so much for that.
There were positive things that happened during the Invasion despite the overall failure.
