Yet another Invasion thread

[wildojinx]

Does anyone think that one of the reasons that flair, nash, goldberg, etc werent brought into the alliance angle (along with the other factors) is that they were afraid they would get face pops? I mean, how could you get fans to boo guys like goldberg and flair? RVD was pretty much a babyface by the fall, despite being on the alliance, and the same thing would probably have happened to the top wcw stars. They should have just done some wwf vs wcw supershow and get rid of the invasion aspect of the angle altogether.

[WWHHHD]

Getting paid millions of dollars to sit at home and do nothing made the decision very easy for those guys.

[Deleted]

I doubt it, seeing as the original plan was to replace Raw with Nitro. Face pops would have helped in making that a reality.

[flatsdomino]

May 13, 2012 21:55:30 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

I doubt it, seeing as the original plan was to replace Raw with Nitro. Face pops would have helped in making that a reality.

I never heard that - I always heard that the plan was to either find a new timeslot for the WWF-owned WCW (which didn't happen as no TV station was apparently interested in having WCW anymore) or to give them Smackdown, which didn't happen because of the Bagwell-Booker match, apparently. But I just couldn't ever see Vince giving up the flagship.

[xCompackx]

May 13, 2012 21:52:50 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Does anyone think that one of the reasons that flair, nash, goldberg, etc werent brought into the alliance angle (along with the other factors) is that they were afraid they would get face pops? I mean, how could you get fans to boo guys like goldberg and flair? RVD was pretty much a babyface by the fall, despite being on the alliance, and the same thing would probably have happened to the top wcw stars. They should have just done some wwf vs wcw supershow and get rid of the invasion aspect of the angle altogether.

Big problem with not doing an "invasion" type deal is that for the entire time they were competing, it was a war of ratings in every sense of the term. I don't think they could've done it to where people from WCW didn't get booed just for being in that company.

[Cry Me a Wiggle]

Yeah, initially they were going to get a timeslot for a WCW brand. They even started booking house shows as "Shane McMahon Presents WCW", but those were canceled when they couldn't convince Spike TV to give them an hour or two out of their week.

Following that, the plan for the eventual Raw/Smackdown split was drafted up, with Raw becoming a WCW show and Smackdown the WWF's. Then Tacoma happened, Vince freaked out as he's prone to do, and all of WCW were turned into heels overnight.

I'm not bitter or anything. I've had ten years to get over it. Seriously.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

WCW were the babyfaces in the early days. The crowd was popping huge even for people like Lance Storm. Watch the Mania match, Shane is a babyface and Vince is the heel.

The WCW guys only turned heel when Buff Bagwell and Booker T happened, in a WWF territory instead of in Georgia the week after, and Vince thought the WCW guys couldn't get over.

So no, WCW's guys would have HELPED in those early days because Booker would defend against Flair or Goldberg or even f***ing Sid for f***'s sake, and they would have been more over and then we'd have got the WCW guys as faces instead.

[beatlefreak909]

I'm not sure if this link will work, but WWE did file for a Trademark for "WCW Saturday Nitro" in 2001, so they were planning on reviving Nitro at some point apparently during the Invasion angle.

tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:346j6i.2.5


EDIT: The link above doesn't work, but search for "WCW Saturday Nitro" on the US Trademark site to find it:

tess2.uspto.gov/

[Deleted]

May 14, 2012 1:22:24 GMT -5 Cry Me a Wiggle said:

Yeah, initially they were going to get a timeslot for a WCW brand. They even started booking house shows as "Shane McMahon Presents WCW", but those were canceled when they couldn't convince Spike TV to give them an hour or two out of their week.

Following that, the plan for the eventual Raw/Smackdown split was drafted up, with Raw becoming a WCW show and Smackdown the WWF's. Then Tacoma happened, Vince freaked out as he's prone to do, and all of WCW were turned into heels overnight.

I'm not bitter or anything. I've had ten years to get over it. Seriously.

Hell, that's basically what wound up happening anyway, after Raw got Bischoff in charge and took on a more Nitro-like set, including the announce table placement. Always kind of weird to me that the titles from WCW, World aside, were on SmackDown instead though.

[avenger]

They weren't brought in for two reasons:

1) As WWHHHD says, they were being paid to sit at home by someone else
2) If you bring Flair, the NWO, Goldberg and Steiner in at the same time as everyone else, you pop one, maybe two buyrates. Doing it they way they did, they extended they were still able to get a pop out of WCW guys arrivals two years after it folded.

And no way would Vince ever change the name of Raw to Nitro, especially when Monday Nitro was used by WCW because it was as close a name to Monday Night Raw as they could get - and if Vince was even remotely interested in using WCW names, we'd have seen a Starrcade, Halloween Havor or Fall Brawl by now, as even now, they're still bigger in people's consciousnesses than Armageddon or Vengeance ever will be.

[mrbananagrabber]

So what happened with this Booker/Bagwell match that changed everything?

[Metalheadbanger Man]

May 14, 2012 15:28:02 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

So what happened with this Booker/Bagwell match that changed everything?

The fans crapped all over it, so much so that Vince abandoned the idea of WCW as a seperate brand. Then again, Bagwell had a point in his shoot when he said that the RAW the week after was in Atlanta, and the match would've obviously gone over a lot better.

[kingoftheindies]

May 14, 2012 15:36:04 GMT -5 Metalheadbanger Man said:

May 14, 2012 15:28:02 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

So what happened with this Booker/Bagwell match that changed everything?

The fans crapped all over it, so much so that Vince abandoned the idea of WCW as a seperate brand. Then again, Bagwell had a point in his shoot when he said that the RAW the week after was in Atlanta, and the match would've obviously gone over a lot better.

which is true, but a lot of people also point out how during house shows Booker and Buff were having horrible matches when paired together and the crowds hated them, but when Booker fought Lance the crowds loved the matches. Supposedly a lot of wrestling guys were pushing for Lance to be Booker's opponent, but they felt Buff was the bigger name (despite Lance being white hot from his past year and a half in WCW and ECW as well as him kicking off the Invasion)

[Deleted]

May 14, 2012 15:36:04 GMT -5 Metalheadbanger Man said:

May 14, 2012 15:28:02 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

So what happened with this Booker/Bagwell match that changed everything?

The fans crapped all over it, so much so that Vince abandoned the idea of WCW as a seperate brand. Then again, Bagwell had a point in his shoot when he said that the RAW the week after was in Atlanta, and the match would've obviously gone over a lot better.

But they did a Lance Storm Booker T match in Atlanta the following week, and they did numerous WCW matches on the Smackdown in between.

EDIT - My mistake, they did Booker T Lance storm at house shows in Georgia but it diddnt make the Raw, misread history of wwf then

[fw91]

May 13, 2012 21:54:06 GMT -5 WWHHHD said:

Getting paid millions of dollars to sit at home and do nothing made the decision very easy for those guys.