Invasion PPV (2001)

[auph10imitated]

So the Invasion angle in my mind is the biggest f*** up of an angle that the WWE ever did, and watching the Invasion PPV at the moment for the first time in a while reminds me how underwhelming the card was, what could have been the biggest PPV in history if they had waited, was rushed in a month. What a mess of a line up.

Edge and Christian vs Mike Awesome and Lance Storm
Earl Hebner vs Nick Patrick
The APA vs Palumbo & O'Haire
X-Pac vs Billy Kidman
Raven vs William Regal
Kanyon, Shawn Stasiak and Hugh Morrus vs Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert
Rob Van Dam vs Jeff Hardy
Trish Stratus and Lita vs Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson
Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Kane and Undertaker vs Booker T, DDP, Rhyno and The Dudley Boyz

Awesome/Storm were a throw together team no one really cared about, The referee match had no business on PPV, The APA were a B card comedy act and the WCW team was a total non enity, X-Pac had been pretty irrelevant for over a year, Raven had been stuck in crappy hardcore marches for month and had nothing going on with Regal IIRC, the six man was jobber city, RVD vs Jeff was probably the savior of the mess, the womens match made some sense and at the time I think was the only thing I cared to see and the main event heels had one wrestler who hadbeen WWF for 6 months and two that ultimately made thier star in the WWF.

Just to think what this COULD have been.. I just wish they had continued with the angles they had going as the WWF alone and left WCW on the side lines for another few months, sent the stars they had signed to OVW or something for the time being.

[auph10imitated]

Another question I have to ask is how many angles and fueds were not concluded or abruptly ended that Spring when they chnaged course and brought in WCW, and then turned ECW heel?

[g1megatronfan]

I haven't seen that show since it originally aired back in 2001. Looking at the card now...it still looks better than current day WWE's lineup for shows. One thing I remember was hating Austin's 2nd heel turn. It didn't make any sense to me then and it doesn't now. If only they waited a few months and the whole storyline could have been better.

[Mid-Carder]

I'm sure I've ranted about this before but the dumbest thing WWE has ever done was turning Austin heel at Invasion. His heel turn at Mania 17 gets a lot of flak, but they were trying something. He was still the most popular guy in the company, despite them doing everything possible to get people to boo him, people refused. The SmackDown before Invasion he saved Team WWF to one of the loudest ovations you'll ever hear. Face Austin was back and as over as ever. They could have kept him face and fixed the damage they'd done since Mania 17. I'll never understand why they turned him heel again just a few days later. I didn't understand it back then in my early smark years and I understand it even less now.

I'd go so far as to say it was the end of Austin's (and arguably WWE's) time on top.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

It's worth noting that the very idea of the Invasion was so huge that with this lineup, much of which was I believe unannounced, got a 750k buyrate. It is an insanely successful show.

[Tea & Crumpets]

....I kinda liked the show. But it always pissed me off to no end that Awesome & Storm were wasted in the opener, and Kanyon jobbed out in a midcard filler match. Those dudes were bigger and better than that.

[Stone Cold Eleanor Shellstrop]

Jun 9, 2016 15:58:20 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

I'm sure I've ranted about this before but the dumbest thing WWE has ever done was turning Austin heel at Invasion. His heel turn at Mania 17 gets a lot of flak, but they were trying something. He was still the most popular guy in the company, despite them doing everything possible to get people to boo him, people refused. The SmackDown before Invasion he saved Team WWF to one of the loudest ovations you'll ever hear. Face Austin was back and as over as ever. They could have kept him face and fixed the damage they'd done since Mania 17. I'll never understand why they turned him heel again just a few days later. I didn't understand it back then in my early smark years and I understand it even less now.

I'd go so far as to say it was the end of Austin's (and arguably WWE's) time on top.

I'm still in the camp that Austin's heel turn was best for the character, who was already stale by the time he came back in 2000, but also, that having Austin as the top heel was best for booking as a lot of guys got moved up into higher spots had he not turned (to say nothing about the Rock's time off to film a movie and Triple H's injury). Benoit, Jericho, Angle, the Hardy Boyz, and RVD would have never received the bump up the card that they had with Austin as top face.

I can't imagine any way WWE books 2001 without a top heel the caliber of Austin. True, not all the booking during that time was that great (Undertaker and Kane vs. Triple H and Austin wasn't exactly riveting), but, all other things being equal, I have no clue who Vince McMahon would book a face Austin against in October, for example.

[Mid-Carder]

Jun 9, 2016 16:17:55 GMT -5 Stone Cold Eleanor Shellstrop said:

Jun 9, 2016 15:58:20 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

I'm sure I've ranted about this before but the dumbest thing WWE has ever done was turning Austin heel at Invasion. His heel turn at Mania 17 gets a lot of flak, but they were trying something. He was still the most popular guy in the company, despite them doing everything possible to get people to boo him, people refused. The SmackDown before Invasion he saved Team WWF to one of the loudest ovations you'll ever hear. Face Austin was back and as over as ever. They could have kept him face and fixed the damage they'd done since Mania 17. I'll never understand why they turned him heel again just a few days later. I didn't understand it back then in my early smark years and I understand it even less now.

I'd go so far as to say it was the end of Austin's (and arguably WWE's) time on top.

I can't imagine any way WWE books 2001 without a top heel the caliber of Austin. True, not all the booking during that time was that great (Undertaker and Kane vs. Triple H and Austin wasn't exactly riveting), but, all other things being equal, I have no clue who Vince McMahon would book a face Austin against in October, for example.

Create a top heel. Face Austin is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that they threw away, even when given an opportunity to right the wrong at Mania 17

[Nickybojelais]

When you look back at that card, outside of the main event, it looks more like a double Sunday Night Heat taping rather than a PPV.

[auph10imitated]

Getting to the end with so much Steph and Shane and Austin turning heel again makes me even more bitter. They should have waited and had all these WCW guys take Indy bookings and work OVW/MCW/UPW.

WWF still had enough to go on until the end of the year. Fair enough they were treading water a little but the roster was still loaded enough to shake things up. I would have had Christian turn on Edge after KOTR and really push thier feud which was an afterthought in the Invasion.

Debut RVD high up the card and push Rhyno as a monster heel. Have Jericho be Austins next challenger in the summer in the wake of KOTR before eventually turning Angle baby face in the fall.

[wildojinx]

Jun 9, 2016 16:23:12 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

Jun 9, 2016 16:17:55 GMT -5 Stone Cold Eleanor Shellstrop said:

I can't imagine any way WWE books 2001 without a top heel the caliber of Austin. True, not all the booking during that time was that great (Undertaker and Kane vs. Triple H and Austin wasn't exactly riveting), but, all other things being equal, I have no clue who Vince McMahon would book a face Austin against in October, for example.

Create a top heel. Face Austin is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that they threw away, even when given an opportunity to right the wrong at Mania 17

The only top heels they could have used (outside of the WCW/ECW invaders) would have been Angle and HHH. HHH/Austin had already been done, and Angle/Austin could have been done, but then you get rid of the Shane/Angle match (though in retrospect, that may have been better for both Angle and Shane).

[Stone Cold Eleanor Shellstrop]

Jun 9, 2016 16:55:15 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Jun 9, 2016 16:23:12 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

Create a top heel. Face Austin is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that they threw away, even when given an opportunity to right the wrong at Mania 17

The only top heels they could have used (outside of the WCW/ECW invaders) would have been Angle and HHH. HHH/Austin had already been done, and Angle/Austin could have been done, but then you get rid of the Shane/Angle match (though in retrospect, that may have been better for both Angle and Shane).

And once Austin was back to being a babyface by the time 2001 was done, I remember a lot of people in those days of whatever the IWC was back then thinking that Austin was boring (and the Rock got the same criticisms too). And there just wasn't the talent in WWE to push a top heel, unless it was Big Show or William Regal, and like you say, Triple H/Austin had been done to death. And a lot of the WCW guys weren't going to abandon their contracts, so they couldn't be top heel, and the guys who did come to the WWF, like Booker T and DDP, didn't work as heels at the same level as WWE's faces. And I don't think that's their fault, WWE certainly could have booked them better.

Heel Austin was the best of a bunch of situations outside of WWE's control--Triple H getting injured, Rock taking off for a few months to do the Mummy 2, most of the big name WCW guys staying under contract with Time Warner, the Attitude Era cooling off somewhat, especially after the XFL blunder, and maximizing a top talent like Austin who would be pretty much done as a full time guy in less than a year. A face Austin doing the exact same stuff he did in 1999 in 2001, albeit without an antagonist like Mr. McMahon to go against (unless WWE reheated that up, which would have been as much of a retread as Austin's face character was/would have been), I just don't see how that could have worked.

If anything, WWE dropped the ball during the InVasion when Rob Van Dam was over as a top face despite being a member of the heel faction, yet he didn't get a one-on-one match with Austin for the title, which had it happened he probably should have won.

[Deleted]

Only PPV I've ever been to.

[Hanzo]

I have to admit, back then, I was pumped for RVD vs. Jeff Hardy.

[cabbageboy]

Yeah RVD/Jeff was one of those "Star is Born" moments on PPV, even though I'd hardly call RVD circa 2001 some sort of unknown commodity. From an in ring standpoint I don't think RVD was ever any better than he was in 2001-02. It's like WWE's superior agents honed his style and condensed everything that worked into something great. The Hardy match got 12:24 at Invasion, which is the perfect length.

I don't think the 2nd heel turn for Austin was as bad as it is being made out here. In fact it's probably some of my favorite Austin work. It was Austin's hasty, bizarre face turn in late 2001 and his subsequent "What" crap and terrible matches that wrecked his career.

[543Y2J]

RVD vs Brother Nero was/is f***ing amazing

[BorneAgain]

Still has one my favorite PPV intros ever:

WWF Invasion Opening

[horseface]

With this PPV and the rest of the angle, there just weren't enough major stars running with WCW. Doesn't help that a bunch of WCWs guys like Jericho, Big Show, and Guerrero among others had already made the jump over. Ideally a WCW vs WWF would have been done at the peak of the MNW era, though for obvious reasons that didn't happen.

Also if you watch some of the programming it feels like WWE's creative funk was really starting to set in.

[Limity (BLM)]

Jun 9, 2016 17:06:46 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Only PPV I've ever been to.

Literally, a once in a lifetime PPV. Hell, a once in forever PPV when you think about it.

[thecrusherwi]

Jun 9, 2016 14:29:55 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

Another question I have to ask is how many angles and fueds were not concluded or abruptly ended that Spring when they chnaged course and brought in WCW, and then turned ECW heel?

This touches on an interesting topic: how many dead end storylines were there in the spring of 2001? From the deaths of ECW and WCW to the WWF basically throwing everything aside once the invasion started it was a really weird and confusing time to be a wrestling fan. Honestly the more I think about it, all three companies that were hot during the 90s boom died in 2001. ECW and WCW ceased operations and by spring 2002 the WWF would be called WWE and with the brand split bared little resemblance to the company that existed during the Monday Night Wars. It's like wrestling itself did a hard reset when're WWF bought WCW