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Post by James Fabiano on May 2, 2010 13:00:26 GMT -5
Judging how most of the big names they did get afterwards were treated, I wouldn't expect much either way.
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bagsley
Samurai Cop
Demolition Bear is da king of Ruthless.
Posts: 2,139
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Post by bagsley on May 2, 2010 16:32:27 GMT -5
The best part of the InVasion PPV was the intro, really got me pumped up at the time.
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hassanchop
Grimlock
Who are you to doubt Belldandy?
Posts: 14,776
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Post by hassanchop on May 3, 2010 11:42:34 GMT -5
I still say instead of an invasion, they shoulda made WCW stars do what the nWo did in No Way Out, I mean make them say they came to join WWF(E) not destroy it, and allow them to compete, make Smackdown their air time, and put former ECW wrestlers there to make up for the lack of big names, just make them wrestle to make them recognized. And make ECW vs WCW instead, like Paul Heyman attacks Shane and declares WCW his original problem have him bring in the Radicalz and Chris Jericho and they shoot and declare their frustration with WCW and their exodus, all the while Vince just sits back thinking let them destroy each other.
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Post by Icecap on May 5, 2010 15:12:32 GMT -5
The best part of the InVasion PPV was the intro, really got me pumped up at the time. That it was. I was pumped. One of, if not the, best ppv openings of all time. It's tragic when you think of how badly WWF/E dropped the ball though. The first mistake was making Shane the owner of WCW in story-line terms. As a WCW fan back then I didn't buy it. Bischoff should have been the guy to lead the WCW forces as heels from the get-go. The lack of big-name stars also hurt. When people were salivating over WCW-WWF dream matches they imagined stuff like Sting vs Undertaker, Goldberg vs Austin, stuff like that. What we got was Crash Holly vs Billy Kidman and DDP getting beaten by Undertaker's wife (not technically part of the InVasion, but it was WWF vs WCW, sort of). The only main eventers on the WCW side of things were DDP and Booker T, and while I'm a fan of both of them, realistically they were on the bottom rung of WCW's main event roster. Guys like Goldberg, Sting, Flair, Nash, and Steiner could have really bolstered the WCW side of things and given fans matches they waited years, in some cases a decade, to see. Instead Vince opted to not bring in Bischoff, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, Nash, or Steiner and instead we got WCW being led by Shane McMahon, Austin, and Angle. As a former WCW fan who was initially PSYCHED for the InVasion my reaction to this was "what the heck?" The tragic part of all of this was that Bischoff, Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Nash, and Steiner would all be brought in a year or two following the invasion when business was in a downturn. Had they been brought in a year or so later when business was hot and people were ready for a WWF vs WCW program it could have been HUGE. The only "leader" on the Alliance side of things I ever really got behind was Paul Heyman, because of all the leaders in WCW/ECW he was the only genuine one. Shane, Stephanie (who's bright idea was it to associate Stephanie McMahon with ECW anyway?), Austin, and Angle were all WWF people as far as I was concerned. Which is telling. I was a huge WCW fan. All they had to do to get me to rabidly support WCW in this invasion was to not screw it up. Instead they told me that WCW was to be led by a group of WWF guys. An angle I should have been rabidly behind left me feeling let down, disappointed, and underwhelmed. Though I wonder how much the big names would have helped in the long-run. After all Vince made it clear that WCW wasn't a real threat. They were constantly beaten down, and the only members who had any real success in the battle against the WWF were Shane, Austin, and Angle, three men who were associated with the WWF in the minds of the fans. Vince seemed unable to give WCW any sort of leg up in the storyline, even if the eventual plan was for the WWF to triumph at the end. He just couldn't bring himself to book WCW guys as equals and thus present an engaging storyline. The InVasion angle and how Vince handled it are my go-to examples anytime someone says Vince will push anything if it will make money. Had he signed the top WCW stars and pushed them as real threats he would have made huge amounts of money, but he let his fragile ego get in the way of that. So looking back, no the InVasion wasn't rushed. Had they signed the right people to lead WCW's side of things and had WCW been pushed as a real threat to the WWF it would have been one of, if not the, most successful angels of all time. The timing of the InVasion was fine. The execution was what was off. Don't even get me started on how, if booked right, the InVasion could have led to an actual, successful, meaningful, brand extension.
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CaptainFall
Samurai Cop
'Fascinating is the word of the day'
Posts: 2,151
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Post by CaptainFall on Jun 25, 2010 1:43:28 GMT -5
The Invasion angle was without a doubt the worst execution of an angle they'll ever be simply because this could have been a storyline that could have run on for years and it was pretty much over in a few months. The one moment it looked as though it was getting back on track with the formation of ECW, they go and bring out Stephanie McMahon to lead them! The angle was completely killed then.
Should have held back, waiting to get the big names in with Bischoff leading Flair, Steiner, Booker T, Goldberg etc. then follow it up with Paul Heyman rounding up the old ECW guys. It has to be the worst bit of business Vince McMahon has ever done, this angle could have generated an incredible amount of revenue in merchandise alone but ended up being just horrible.
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Post by simongr81 on Jun 26, 2010 12:24:31 GMT -5
First, I am sure you made you know this Icecap but Sting was never brought in. He said Vince was nice when he talked to him, but did not like the way Booker T. was treated. Funny as it was, when The Rock said "Just who in the blue hell are you?" he set the feud as champ v. chump mentality rather than two guys who were respected World Champs. Horrible mistake. It got over anyway to a point, but not like it could have. Other things: They could have brought The Big Show to WCW (and had him go back to his Giant moniker), ditto with Meng/Haku. William Regal did switch, but would it not have made more sense to have him use his "Lord" Steven Regal nomenclature? And while we could debate what would and wouldn't have worked, these angles are not new. UWF in WCW 1987: Failed. NWO in WCW 1996: Success would be an understatement. WWF in USWA: Success (I highly recommend watching this entire series of McMemphis www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV0fiknn6ws)Japan has done successful invasion/cross promotion angles: All Japan-New Japan, New Japan-UWFI that hae rocked the houses. Now I will say there was a quandry with the fact so many big stars had their contracts held by Time Warner. But even then the Invasion could have worked without them for a while and then they would have been buyable. Or they could have bought them off at first, though I admit that had risks.
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Post by Hugh Mungus on Jul 6, 2010 19:21:41 GMT -5
First, I am sure you made you know this Icecap but Sting was never brought in. He said Vince was nice when he talked to him, but did not like the way Booker T. was treated. Funny as it was, when The Rock said "Just who in the blue hell are you?" he set the feud as champ v. chump mentality rather than two guys who were respected World Champs. Horrible mistake. It got over anyway to a point, but not like it could have. To be fair, The Rock did his "Who in the blue hell are you?" shtick to everybody, be it WWF or WCW. Did I mention that, at that point, WCW was seen as a biohazard by everyone? It's been a while I've posted here.
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Matt Dunn
Hank Scorpio
It was inevitable.
Posts: 5,596
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Post by Matt Dunn on Jul 7, 2010 5:18:34 GMT -5
They couldn't get the big names so they went with plan B and just decided to bury everybody. So Vince can show the world that he won the "war" and he's so awesome. Just my theory.
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SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
Jamaican WCF Crazy!
Half Man-Half Amazing
Posts: 27,214
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Post by SAJ Forth on Jul 7, 2010 13:18:12 GMT -5
They couldn't get the big names so they went with plan B and just decided to bury everybody. So Vince can show the world that he won the "war" and he's so awesome. Just my theory. As funny as this was, it seems like the likely answer.
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Post by arthuradams2002 on Jul 10, 2010 6:13:51 GMT -5
The best part of the InVasion PPV was the intro, really got me pumped up at the time. That it was. I was pumped. One of, if not the, best ppv openings of all time. It's tragic when you think of how badly WWF/E dropped the ball though. The first mistake was making Shane the owner of WCW in story-line terms. As a WCW fan back then I didn't buy it. Bischoff should have been the guy to lead the WCW forces as heels from the get-go. The lack of big-name stars also hurt. When people were salivating over WCW-WWF dream matches they imagined stuff like Sting vs Undertaker, Goldberg vs Austin, stuff like that. What we got was Crash Holly vs Billy Kidman and DDP getting beaten by Undertaker's wife (not technically part of the InVasion, but it was WWF vs WCW, sort of). The only main eventers on the WCW side of things were DDP and Booker T, and while I'm a fan of both of them, realistically they were on the bottom rung of WCW's main event roster. Guys like Goldberg, Sting, Flair, Nash, and Steiner could have really bolstered the WCW side of things and given fans matches they waited years, in some cases a decade, to see. Instead Vince opted to not bring in Bischoff, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, Nash, or Steiner and instead we got WCW being led by Shane McMahon, Austin, and Angle. As a former WCW fan who was initially PSYCHED for the InVasion my reaction to this was "what the heck?" The tragic part of all of this was that Bischoff, Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Nash, and Steiner would all be brought in a year or two following the invasion when business was in a downturn. Had they been brought in a year or so later when business was hot and people were ready for a WWF vs WCW program it could have been HUGE. The only "leader" on the Alliance side of things I ever really got behind was Paul Heyman, because of all the leaders in WCW/ECW he was the only genuine one. Shane, Stephanie (who's bright idea was it to associate Stephanie McMahon with ECW anyway?), Austin, and Angle were all WWF people as far as I was concerned. Which is telling. I was a huge WCW fan. All they had to do to get me to rabidly support WCW in this invasion was to not screw it up. Instead they told me that WCW was to be led by a group of WWF guys. An angle I should have been rabidly behind left me feeling let down, disappointed, and underwhelmed. Though I wonder how much the big names would have helped in the long-run. After all Vince made it clear that WCW wasn't a real threat. They were constantly beaten down, and the only members who had any real success in the battle against the WWF were Shane, Austin, and Angle, three men who were associated with the WWF in the minds of the fans. Vince seemed unable to give WCW any sort of leg up in the storyline, even if the eventual plan was for the WWF to triumph at the end. He just couldn't bring himself to book WCW guys as equals and thus present an engaging storyline. The InVasion angle and how Vince handled it are my go-to examples anytime someone says Vince will push anything if it will make money. Had he signed the top WCW stars and pushed them as real threats he would have made huge amounts of money, but he let his fragile ego get in the way of that. So looking back, no the InVasion wasn't rushed. Had they signed the right people to lead WCW's side of things and had WCW been pushed as a real threat to the WWF it would have been one of, if not the, most successful angels of all time. The timing of the InVasion was fine. The execution was what was off. Don't even get me started on how, if booked right, the InVasion could have led to an actual, successful, meaningful, brand extension. They couldn't sign a lot of those guys right away because they were still under contract with Time Warner. They had guaranteed contracts that rolled over, so they were sitting at home and still collecting checks for WCW. There was no point for them to sign with the WWF right away when they were getting paid big bucks by staying home. The reason why the Invasion angle featured a lot of lower card WCW talent was because those guys needed to get back on tv right away for the exposure. Take someone like Mark Jindrak, if he was still on a two year deal and he sat out for the remainer of it, would people still remember him by the time he tried to get back into the ring ? So the guys who gave up their sit-at-home deals to wrestle again were guys who needed to retain their spot in the business. I think in a shoot interview Scott Steiner said that DDP and Booker T when back on the road right away more so because of their passion for the business.
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luiscurse
ALF
Don't puke on my pimp hat Warriah!
Posts: 1,005
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Post by luiscurse on Jul 20, 2010 4:31:59 GMT -5
It could have worked if it wasn't rushed and it had the right amount of star power. Who here believes that Stephanie was given the ECW owner role solely cause Hunter was injured?
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SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
Jamaican WCF Crazy!
Half Man-Half Amazing
Posts: 27,214
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Post by SAJ Forth on Jul 30, 2010 8:32:51 GMT -5
Should have held back, waiting to get the big names in with Bischoff leading Flair, Steiner, Booker T, Goldberg etc. then follow it up with Paul Heyman rounding up the old ECW guys. It has to be the worst bit of business Vince McMahon has ever done, this angle could have generated an incredible amount of revenue in merchandise alone but ended up being just horrible. I'm starting to think maybe impatience did indeed ruin it.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,899
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Jul 30, 2010 23:57:15 GMT -5
No, it wasn't rushed, it could have never succeeded with the players at hand in the first place.
The WCW guys at two legitimate guys, DDP and Booker. People complain about Taker dominating DDP, I would have been disappointed if it went any other way. What did DDP have to take Taker on with? He wasn't bigger, stronger, a better brawler, a better wrestler and he didn't even have something as trivial as as many tattoos as Taker.
DDP was fine in the ring, but it's probably true he was only got where he did because of a close relationship with Bishoff.
Booker was fine, but there was a perception at the time he was a poor Rock clone. Or at least, that's the vibe I got.
Without all the guys who eventually did come in, Hogan, Goldberg, Flair, Steiner, Bisch, Nash, Hall, Xpac the InVasion was just the WCW midcard, who weren't over by anyone's stretch of the imagination in either WCW or the WWF against the WWF.
Plus, there was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many titles. Some PPVs at the Alliance time had like 8 or 9 title matches. They switched hands all the f***ing time, you couldn't keep straight who was champion and exactly why you should care.
Since we know certain guys couldn't come in because they were contracted to Turner as opposed to WCW, the WWF worked with what it had and it failed.
Even if they hadn't run through a year's worth of storylines in 20 minutes of TV time when the Alliance failed, I don't see the angle succeeding.
It was really too much. Too easy to make money. That's why it failed. A HUGE segment of the audience would walk away disappointed, regardless of the players.
Dream Match Austin vs. Goldberg.
Austin wins, WCW loyalists are outraged and it's booked poorly. Goldberg wins and WWF loyalists are pissed because Goldberg can't wrestle and whatever else.
The magnitude of what the Invasion could have been couldn't support it's own weight.
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Post by pundabaya on Jul 31, 2010 11:15:06 GMT -5
How to make the Invasion work in one easy step:
Make the WCW guys the face faction, who just want to work. Have the ECW guys join because they know what it feels like when your company goes under. Have The Rock, Austin join the Alliance, because its the right thing to do. Have WWF run by Vince McMahon and a team of enforcers led by Angle. Have The Undertaker stuck in the middle, reluctantly obeying orders due to his loyalty to the company, but knowing that the Alliance is in the right.
Then you bring in the big names as and when they are available.
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Post by cobrafan on Aug 2, 2010 8:36:54 GMT -5
It seemed very rushed. Wasn't the original idea was to have WCW matches on their programming? I remember the Booker Vs. Bagwell match that the fans crapped on and it seemed like the InVasion storyline took place right after that.
I guess they panicked when that flopped and threw together what could have been every wrestling fan's dream and turned it into a nightmare.
What hurt it more than anything was Stone Cold being the leader. It just made no sense what so ever.
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Post by Hugh Mungus on Aug 2, 2010 11:29:16 GMT -5
It seemed very rushed. Wasn't the original idea was to have WCW matches on their programming? I remember the Booker Vs. Bagwell match that the fans crapped on and it seemed like the InVasion storyline took place right after that. I guess they panicked when that flopped and threw together what could have been every wrestling fan's dream and turned it into a nightmare. As I mentioned earlier, WCW at the time was seen as a biohazard and TNN wouldn't even touch it with a ten-foot pole, and that proposed WCW show became WWF Excess. Combine that with Vince McMahon's historical reluctance to push wrestlers he didn't create and... Stone Cold WANTED to turn heel, but the fans won't buy it.
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Post by mongomcmichael on Aug 14, 2010 2:12:00 GMT -5
I think what was the nail in the coffin of WCW ever being a legitimate brand or faction in 2001 was the absolutely horrible wCw "debut" match between Booker T and Buff Bagwell.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,031
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Aug 14, 2010 3:18:15 GMT -5
Considering the big names all DID come to WWE, they could have stretched it out.
Survivor Series, it looks like the Alliance is on the ropes, moments away from defeat and 'WOOOOO' Ric Flair comes out and galvanises the team and they get away, by Wrestlemania, the Alliance is fading again and BAM out come Hogan, Hall and Nash, every time it looks like the Alliance is going away they pull someone else out of the bag, Steiner, Goldberg etc. until you have everyone, then you can do a massive multiman match to end it with everyone.
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Big L
Grimlock
Posts: 13,883
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Post by Big L on Aug 14, 2010 19:39:42 GMT -5
Nah
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Post by celtics543 on Aug 15, 2010 11:40:15 GMT -5
Are you guys not paying any attention to whats CURRENTLY going on in the WWE. The Nexus has been built up over the last few months to something that is over and taken seriously as a threat to the top stars of the WWE. Take a look at where these guys started on NXT and tell me you thought that 7 of them would be main eventing Summerslam this year.
The point is that if the WWE could build those guys into main event level guys, then it shouldn't have been very hard to do the same with the alliance guys. They could have and should have built up the guys they had, and when they had the money, bring in the big name guys to give the angle a shot in the arm. This angle could have gone on for way longer than it did.
They should have kept Austin and Angle on the WWF side of things and built up the other side. Taking people like Tazz, DDP, Booker T, Lance Storm, and RVD and having them led by Heyman and Bischoff would have been fine to take on Austin, Rock, Angle, Undertaker, and Kane. If they really wanted to, they could have Jericho turn and join the alliance. They also should have had it as a three way feud between ECW, WCW, and WWF for a few months until ECW and WCW combined.
They easily could have made this feud last a year or more.
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