Could a NWA invasion of ECW worked?

[horsemen4ever]

I thought the NWA's invasion of the WWF was a good concept, but it never got over, it was more of a nucissence than a real threat. I thought it was a great concept, but wrong company.

But if that did a similar like angle in ECW that could have gone over huge. ECW the rebel organistion being invated by traditionalists wanted to go back to the old days of wrestling, that could have been awesome. Not to mention ECW's history with the NWA. The NWA invading ECW to get revenge for is humilation.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Depends on who came in. Jerry Lawler got HUGE heat for coming in as an outsider saying ECW sucked, but that was back in the days when Lawler could still be one of the top heels in all wrestling. If they had an aging Barry Windham and bland Dan Severn, it would've been terrible.

[Smiley Smile]

Jan 25, 2014 16:03:25 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

If they had an aging Barry Windham and bland Dan Severn, it would've been terrible.

This is pretty much exactly what the problem would be. By the time ECW was in its heyday, the NWA had become an irrelevance, and a lot of its former stars were retired, employed elsewhere, or just broken down. So it would've been between bringing in broken down ex-Crockett stars, or an invasion consisting of completely uninteresting wrestlers who nobody in their right minds would have been interested in seeing.

That's not to say that the concept itself is bad, because it isn't. Like the poster above said, Lawler got heat, as did Steve Corino with his "King of Old School" gimmick. The problem would be using the NWA specifically, just because it had fallen so much by that point that the people involved just wouldn't have been interesting.

[mrjl]

Severn might have been bland but what if they put him in an MMA type angle with Taz?

[SOR]

Most of the NWA's top guys were ECW guys so it probably wouldn't have worked.

They did try ECW invading an NWA Territory back in 1997 though. It didn't last long.

[WWHHHD]

SMW would have worked. Because the ECW fans knew of legit heat between Cornette and Heyman.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I like the idea of a group of NWA wrestlers showing up at ECW shows in an attempt to "get revenge" and "regain honor" for Douglas throwing down the title in favor of the ECW title. 

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

Jan 25, 2014 23:24:58 GMT -5 El Pollo Guerrera said:

I like the idea of a group of NWA wrestlers showing up at ECW shows in an attempt to "get revenge" and "regain honor" for Douglas throwing down the title in favor of the ECW title. 

That's what I was going to say. If they had done it, they would have had a good starting point with Douglas's refusal of the NWA Title. But, as has been said, they didn't really have any stars or relevancy. There's a reason Dan Severn was NWA Champion for like 4 years: they didn't really have anyone else to put the title on.

[thegame415]

I think you would've had to have booked it like Jim Cornette leading a group of guys who aren't necessarily NWA guys. Fr example, RVD and Sabu vs Rock N Roll Express wouldn't have worked. The styles wouldn't mesh. Cornette leading a group of guys like Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Jericho and someone else as the "New" NWA could've worked.

[Deleted]

Right idea, wrong promotion.

One thing that could have possibly worked is if all the former ECW guys that eventually came back from the bigger promotions (Pubic Enemy, 2 Cold Scorpio/Flash Funk, Raven, Sandman, etc.) and formed a group stating that they're going to show the ECW fans and wrestlers what real wrestling is all about.
Some sort of quasi-WCW stable. And I have the guy that could have been the leader, the one to kick it off.

Seeing how a lot of those guys came in around 1998-99, you could have used the "Tommy Dreamer surprise partner" at the 1998 November To Remember as the start.

Terry Funk all ticked off that Dreamer didn't choose him could have been the father figure trying to reason with Tommy that his "mystery partner" was a bad idea. (Mystery partner is revealed to be Jake "The Snake" Roberts.) "I'm only thinking of your health, Terry! That's why I didn't call you this time!"
Arena show after arena show, the fans "Welcome Back!" the former stars, only for them to turn on the ones that made them big enough names to be able to move onto WCW or the WWF.

So you have the former WCW/WWF guys against the ECW guys with Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer as the leaders.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

it'd be hard to do because in the eyes of many Shane Douglas already got the last word in when he tossed out their belt.

[________ has left the building]

Funny enough, the NWA tried to do an ECW Invasion with former ECW folks like Gary Wolfe, Missy Hyatt, and Todd Gordon.

[Boshek]

Cornett talked about how it wouldn't work in his shoot on Paul Heyman.

[Chairman of the Board]

No way.

NWA was pretty worthless even back in the 90's. They basically threw the NWA title in the trash.

I mean, were not talking Ric Flair strutting into ECW arena. We'd be talking Dan Severn...

I could see a Severn v. Taz match drawing and being interesting. The problem is neither guy could lose at the time.

Overall, it seems like a boring idea and I doubt it would have been exciting.

[mrjl]

they could have put the NWA title on Funk

Hell, they could have put the NWA title on Foley during his anti hardcore phase

[El Pollo Guerrera]

OK, what promotions were part of the NWA during this time, from 1994 to 2001?

I'm pretty sure that NWA Wildside was open then, and they had AJ Styles, Delirious, Chris Harris, Matt Sydal, and Jimmy Rave before ROH and TNA.