Why Austin as leader of The Alliance?

[agent817]

To this day, I still wonder why Austin turned heel for the second time in 2001 to become leader of The Alliance. Did the bookers decide that Austin should have remained heel? I sometimes wonder how the Invasion angle would have played off had Triple H not gotten hurt. Do you think Vince would have had the "Two-Man Power Trip" be the main force to try to bring down The Alliance or do you think Austin would have still turned on the WWF?

Plus, if you really think about it, in the kayfabe sense, Austin wouldn't turn over to WCW because he had problems towards the end of his career there, unless the problems were mostly with Dusty, Bischoff and Hogan.

If not Austin, who could have been a good leader of The Alliance?

[Deleted]

I think it's been said the plan was for Triple H to turn face and eventually bring down the Alliance and take the title from Austin at Mania 18.

[Hit Girl]

On one hand I might say he was the leader because WWF felt the Alliance (a horrible generic name BTW) needed star power. On the other, I could say he was just Vince's proxy, and Vince simply booked Austin to do all the demeaning things to WCW that he wanted to do.

A good leader/s? Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman.

[Sephiroth]

My belief has been that Vince, as many have suggested, pretty much talked himself into believing that the newly arrived WCW stars couldn't draw-the idea that he just wasn't booking the whole InVasion very well wasn't acceptable. So he decided he had to use one of WWE's biggest names for the Alliance to possibly look like a real threat to WWE. As far as who else could have been leader-Goldberg. Would have been the perfect set up for the ever dreamed of Goldberg/Austin match.

[Deleted]

I think Vince just didn't want to give up on turning the biggest star in pro wrestling ever heel at his biggest PPV ever after only 3 months.

Also, I think if he hadn't of gotten injured Triple H would have made sense as the leader of The Alliance. He is the ECW owner's husband after all.

[JTG Fan]

The pop he got the RAW before InVasion when he ran in and destroyed the Alliance was insane, and showed that Austin vs. WCW was a license to print money. So of course they turned him heel instead.


If they really wanted a WWF guy to be at the top of the Alliance, Rock would have made a lot of sense. He had been beaten down, suspended, and humiliated by Vince and Austin. Jumping to WCW would have been a completely logical step.

[agent817]

Nov 27, 2013 1:49:35 GMT -5 JTG Fan said:

The pop he got the RAW before InVasion when he ran in and destroyed the Alliance was insane, and showed that Austin vs. WCW was a license to print money. So of course they turned him heel instead.


If they really wanted a WWF guy to be at the top of the Alliance, Rock would have made a lot of sense. He had been beaten down, suspended, and humiliated by Vince and Austin. Jumping to WCW would have been a completely logical step.

Yes, that would have been good, but wasn't he shooting a movie at the time? He didn't get involved in the angles until sometime before Summerslam that year.

[Boo!]

He had nothing else to do. In truth the appeal of the Austin character, outside of the McMahon feud, wasn't particularly strong. Unless he was feuding with McMahon somewhere along the line there's not an awful lot the character can do. It's in his nature to be the rebel who sticks one finger up to authority. Even his WM main event with HBK where he won the title, from what I remember his build was that he was the guy that 'the man' wanted to lose and whereby I cannot remember any involvement with HBK himself I do remember a few scenes with Vince. Even post that when he's been feuding with others, mostly McMahon was somewhere in the background or forefront.

When he moved on the feeling as he didn't have as much momentum and therefore they tried to recreate it by turning him heel but that just exacerbated the problem. The 'leader of the alliance' was just something for him to do. I think it was clear that it was a vehicle to try and get him over as opposed to actually being something that was considered a positive for the angle as he dominated, in a bad way, everything about it. WCW/ECW vs WWF is interesting enough a sell as it is. Instead it just became 'something for Austin to do'

[Andrew is Good]

They should have had all former WCW guys be in the Alliance, be it Big Show, Jericho or whoever if they couldn't get any guys. Or, pay the money for a year and bring in some WCW guys.

Basically, the Alliance was Steve Austin and his merry band of jobbers.

[Deleted]

I feel they had a good idea but terrible execution.

They couldn't get the real WCW stars..I am fine with this and they had a good idea with The Alliance beating the WWE by sheer numbers and their numbers should have kept growing..with more former WCW guys jumping ship to the alliance.

I personally would have dwindled the WWEs numbers so far down that all that was left were men and women Vince has screwed over and they don't like or trust him...but they have a loyalty to WWE.

Rock
Taker
Austin
Kane
Angle

Should have been all that was left of the WWE their literal last stand going into survivor series.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

There was a tremendous lack of logic in how the sides were chosen, because of the guys who had documented history in the other companies and didn't change sides. Jericho should've been WCW from an early stage, for example, because he spent so long there and was getting on his heel turn about WWF not respecting him. Big Show should've done because he became a star there. Regal because he was there a lot (I know he went eventually). Tajiri should've been an ECW guy.

[Straight Edge Scrotum]

I would have preferred to see Bischoff aligned with Heyman as the dual mouthpieces for the Alliance. Shane and Steph would have sat it out completely. Booker T should have been their number one guy, with RVD as a close second (ECW's number one guy). Then somewhere down the line bring the Rock in as the traitor (as explained in another post) to back up Booker T as their number two guy.

[doinkmark]

Austin turning made sense in that he'd just spent years feuding with Vince. What better way to stick it to Mister McMahon once and for all then by making Vince think they were finally on the same side only to bolt for the "competition" with the WWF title? WWF didn't play up these facts in the booking though. Nor did they play up Austin's history in WCW or ECW despite now owning the footage. Even Shane buying WCW made sense because it fit the feuding McMahons storyline. He just should've sold it immediately afterward to an Eric Bischoff or some other non-McMahon figurehead. Maybe Heyman, who had just joined the WWF after ECW's demise. I can understand the WWF not being able to get "real" WCW guys for the inVasion, but even then they still had plenty to work with. They just...didn't.

[Dave the Dave]

This isn't totally on point but did Rhino get hurt and get rid of a big gun the Alliance had?

And it's always mentioned WCW guys were missing, but no Sabu or Sandman hurt too

[austinariesfan88]

I always felt Chris Jericho should have been the leader for the Alliance, a lot of people knew Jericho from his WCW days and with the time he spent in ECW, he could have said he went to the Alliance because WWF wasn't treating him right or if not Jericho maybe Big Show.

[kingoftheindies]

If a bunch of interviews and books are to be believed, after the crowd shit on the Booker/Buff match Vince decided that the WCW guys couldn't work. What's funny is Booker had been working against Lance Storm on house shows and they had been putting on good matches getting heat but Vince and Kevin Dunn felt that the first WCW match should be Booker vs Buff because Buff was a more recognizable WCW name.

So after that match, Booker got some heat from the match as well, and DDP had heat with a lot of guys for being a mark for himself/wanting EVERYTHING planned out so the 2 biggest WCW stars that came over were both in the dog house right away.

Then really everybody else outside of RVD was treated like a jobber.

[Amazing Kitsune]

I always get the sense that Vince was of two minds back then.

1) I'm Vince McMahon, dammit, and I love making money. This invasion angle will make money.

but then, he also had something going on in his subconscious.

2) Quite frankly, these guys lost the Monday Night Wars for a reason, nobody wants to see them. They don't know how to work. None of our fans are really going to believe that these guys are in the same league as somebody like Austin.

So essentially, 1 was his primary way of thinking but 2 influenced all of his decisions.

[JTG Fan]

Nov 27, 2013 11:01:00 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

This isn't totally on point but did Rhino get hurt and get rid of a big gun the Alliance had?

And it's always mentioned WCW guys were missing, but no Sabu or Sandman hurt too

Nope, Rhyno was there and they made a half hearted attempt at making him seem like a big deal (a feud with Jericho, a match with Rock on RAW) but ultimately he was just another faceless Alliance member.

[HMARK Center]

Go back even further: Why have "the Alliance" at all?

A huge part of ECW's appeal was that it spoke to fans who were sick of mainstream wrestling in general, and Paul Heyman was never very quiet about his opinions concerning WCW. Having the two team up was just abject silliness.

[bob]

for some reason I remember reading that Austin wanted to stay a heel so they stuck him in The Alliance