2001 Invasion Angle Discussion

[Cub McCallister]

It is a shame that guys like hogan nash hall steiner sting and goldberg didn't come to the wwf at the time of the invasion BUT I think in a way it was a blessing in disguise because who would take the first pin ? Their ego's are too big anyway, they should of pushed the guys they already had guys like Awesome, The Impact Players, Buff Bagwell, DDP, Booker T.

These guys could of all made a big difference had Vince Allowed them to do well and with vince's help they could of reached new heights in the wwf. Raven should of been pushed a lot more along with the Dudley Boys & Rhyno. He could of been the stalker to undertakers wife which could of been good.

All in all it wasn't done that great because the alliance guys weren't pushed hard enough to begin with and it's a real shame now.

 

[Cub McCallister]

The Invasion ppv could of been done so much better tbh, if I was doing the ppv I would work with what I already have BUT I would keep guys like Benoit, HHH and Guerrero even though some were injured or suspended I think that the invasion could of done with these guys, I wouldn't bring in the big guns because their egos are way too big to take a pin so I would so my best to work with the alliance members we already have you see.

1) Edge & Christian Vs The Impact Players
Tag Team Match. Change Mike Awesome with Justin Credible and it would be a grey opener for the show.

2) Billy Kidman (C) Vs X-pac (C)
Crusierweight Vs Lightweight Title. Have the winner become the unified champion which will become billy kidman.

3) Mike Awesome Vs Kane
This would be a great match where Awesome wins with a massive Awesome Bomb, Awesome should of been pushed during his time here.

4) The Acolytes (C) Vs Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo (C)
Wwf Tag Team Champions Vs Wcw Tag Team Champions. I'd have another win for the alliance here and put the wcw tag champs over because I felt they should of been.

5) Tajiri Vs Jerry Lynn
Could be a classic match.

6) Eddie Guerrero (C) Vs Chris Jericho
Intercontinental Title Match. Have Eddie win the title edited hand from Kane and defect to the alliance and feud with jericho an then have Guerrero go over by cheating.

7) Tazz Vs William Regal
Grudge Match. Could of been great for these two to go head to head.

8) Big Show, Billy Gunn, Albert & Spike Vs Hugh Morris, Shawn Stasiak, Kanyon & Bagwell.
8 Man Tag Team Elimination Match. Have this as a filler match something for these guys to so and have kanyon and Bagwell as the survivors.

9) Jeff Hardy (C) Vs Rob van dam
Stays the same.

10) Team Wwf (Stone Cold, HHH, Undertaker, Benoit & Angle) Vs Team Wcw/Ecw (Booker T, Ddp, Raven & Duey Boyz).
Inaugural Brawl Match. Have guys like HHH & Benoit replace Jericho & Kane they could of been needed in the main event & have Raven come in as the stalker of taker and bring the fight to taker as well.

That's my card for Invasion and I feel that's a better card then the original one that happened.

 

[jacdnwarrior]

This topic has been scrutinized to death, but it is worth thinking about. Would WWE be in the position it is right now (one minute making huge revenues, one minute suffering losses, cutting staff etc.) had they done the invasion angle better ? I 'm not sure. Part of me says no, but the wrestling business has always had its ups and downs.

If this invasion was to work, you can do the best you can with what is cheap and hope for the best or go for the gold and work with the big guns. WCW's roster was talented enough but only a few people could deliver the results fans wanted to see. Yes the guys the WWE brought in were talented but they weren't the superstars that the fans wanted to see. Sting, Goldberg, NWO were major players in the wrestling business and the performers most recognized as WCW's biggest and greatest creations. They were crucial to anything resembling a WCW invasion. This invasion angle could have gone on for much longer and made more money than what they delivered to us.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

People argue that the lack of MAJOR WCW stars hurt the Invasion, and it did.

However, even with the talent that was available the WWF vs WCW/ECW storyline could have gone on much longer than it did. Ric Flair debuted in the WWE the day after WWF won the war, and became GM of Raw.

How about....WCW winning that Winner Take All match, and Flair still debuting the night after as the GM of MONDAY NITRO! They could still use the storyline of Naitch buying the shares from Shane and Stephanie, and immediately you get one WCW show going up against one WWF show, with Vince and Flair as rival GMs. I know Flair's health was keeping him out of the ring at that point, so when he was fit to wrestle again, Eric Bischoff could then have come in to take over as Nitro GM, as Flair returned to the ring.

It was only a few months after the Invasion ended that Scott Steiner, Rey Mysterio and the nWo all appeared on WWF TV, so they could have come in as extra weapons for WCW to utilise against the WWF army (who would have been strengthened by the returning Triple H and Chris Benoit)- although perhaps the nWo could have been used as a group of mercenaries who were not loyal to either brand.

There were SO many possibilities, feuds, defections (Jericho to WCW, the Dudleyz back to WWF etc) and storylines that could and should have happened, that were wasted because of McMahon's ego and desire to bury WCW as quickly as possible. He almost certainly cost himself millions by ending a storyline that should have run for years. Imagine an Elimination Chamber or a War Games with Team WCW against Team WWF, or ECW splitting the Alliance and Paul Heyman's troops siding with the WWF instead...

Man...the possibilities...such a shame we never saw these happen.

 

[Wolf Pac]

I would also have had Big Show (The Giant) switch sides as well, but Show was in OVW to lose weight and have extra training, so unfortunately they were not available.

That was in 2000. Big Show should definitely have jumped to The Alliance. He was one of WCW's big stars, which the WCW roster was lacking in The Alliance. Their only true stars were DDP and Booker T. It wouldn't have helped The Alliance a whole lot but it would have given them a little more credibility.

X-Pac should've jumped too. Again, it wouldn't have made a big difference and wouldn't have changed the way the fans felt about him, but I thought it made the WWF look stupid, keeping a heel who the crowd legitimately hated and chanted "X-PAC SUCKS" at every week, on their team. Hell, some of the WWF superstars were making fun of X-Pac in segments despite him being on their side. Pac was once somewhat a prominent part of the nWo, they could have even done a small nWo reunion with him and Big Show, and paired the two up as a regular tag team and had them go after the Tag belts.

Another guy who I thought should have joined is Haku. Fuckin' Haku, man. Meng was another midcarder in WCW, but the dude was a monster and a credible threat. Unfortunately, he wrestled his last match with the company the next day and was released sometime later.

The Invasion ppv could of been done so much better tbh, if I was doing the ppv I would work with what I already have BUT I would keep guys like Benoit, HHH and Guerrero even though some were injured or suspended I think that the invasion could of done with these guys, I wouldn't bring in the big guns because their egos are way too big to take a pin so I would so my best to work with the alliance members we already have you see.

So you know Benoit & Triple H were out with injuries and Guerrero was in rehab and would later be fired, but you still put them on the card anyway? How would that have worked?

This would have been my version of the card though.

1) Edge & Christian vs. The Impact Players

Perfect. One of the WWF's greatest tag teams against one of ECW's greatest tag teams. The only reason why Mike Awesome was in this match was because E&C took offense to his last name because, you know..."they reeked of awesomeness".

2) WWF Light Heavyweight Champion vs. WCW Cruiserweight Champion
X-Pac vs. Billy Kidman

3) WWF Tag Team Champions vs. WCW Tag Team Champions
APA vs. Sean O' Haire & Chuck Palumbo

4) Jerry Lynn vs. William Regal

I love the idea of Lynn on the card and Regal was in a filler match against Raven anyway, why not put Lynn and Regal together and give them the opportunity to create a technical masterpiece?

5) Tazz vs. Tajiri

6) Raven vs. Matt Hardy

Raven was already in a filler match and Matt had nothing to do on the PPV.

7) Shawn Stasiak, Hugh Morrus & Tommy Dreamer vs. Billy Gunn, Big Show & Albert

8) Chris Kanyon vs. Al Snow

I know this would be another meaningless filler, but I wanted to take Kanyon out of the 6 man tag team because The Innovator Of Offense was capable of putting on a good singles match. Kanyon was creative in the ring, and he & Snow could create some magic together, even though Al was busy at the time with Tough Enough, but they could have just brought him in for one night only before he resumes filming Tough Enough. I wanted to put Perry Saturn against Kanyon originally due to their history in WCW, but I couldn't remember which side Saturn was on before his match with Raven at Unforgiven and Saturn was just given the Moppy gimmick as punishment for shooting on some jobber on Sunday Night Heat.

9) Hardcore Match
Mike Awesome vs. Hardcore Holly

Two tough powerhouse brawlers, two mean son-of-a-bitches, two hardcore specialists. Let both men do what they do best, wreck shit up in a hardcore match. Awesome was booked in the wrong match and Holly was stuck at WWF New York.

10) WWF Hardcore Championship
Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

11) The Inaugral Brawl
Team WWF (Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Undertaker & Kane) vs. The Alliance (Booker T, DDP, Rhyno & The Dudley Boyz)

 

[Radical]

This topic has been addressed so many times. Probably because it was the end to the biggest wrestling company war we will probably ever see and it's hard for any wrestling fan to avoid thinking about the numerous angles, storylines and matches that could have happened with the properly signed talent.

It's true, WWE handled it terribly and that was probably the jumping off point for many wrestling fans who left and never come back. They looked at what Vince gave them and said "This is ridiculous!" You want me to invest in a WCW Invasion without Sting, Goldberg, DDP, Steiner Brothers and the NWO?! You want me to believe for a second that Austin and Angle are on team WCW/ECW and that it wouldn't make more sense for Jericho and Big Show to be there?

It was a slap in the face to wrestling fans and many left.

Why did it happen? Clearly, because Vince has a huge ego. He knew he was getting his butt kicked by WCW for years and his company may have gone out of business if WCW's network/funders didn't pull the plug. So Vince "won" the War and then to add insult to injury he brought in a few of the wounded, low level soldiers just to tease them and make them look bad.

If Vince was smart he would have kept WCW/NWO as it's own brand, even if Shane "owned it" first, he then should have had a match with Bischoff or someone and lost it so it was "back in control" of Bischoff so WCW/NWO could continue its style and domination. But no, that couldn't happen because it would remind Vince too much of what was whipping his shows butt in the ratings.

The InVasion angle was is a great example of when Vince did not do what was best for business and just did what was best for his ego. He does that from time to time.

The bad thing now is Vince clearly worked better with stiff competition. The good thing is few are left from WCW so he shouldn't be burying anybody because of WCW affiliations.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

You know, I was thinking about this the other day, and wondering, what if WWF had not named it Invasion. I mean, the biggest thing people have against this angle is that the guys were not really the representatives of WCW. It was also a rushed angle. The big story over the summer of 2001 was supposed to be the break up of the Two Man Power Trip but Triple H got injured and so Vince had to play his hand.

So, I was wondering what would have happened if they removed the WWF vs WCW aspect of it. Just have a bunch of disgruntled young superstars attack the established talent of WCW saying that they thought that things would improve in this company but it's all the same everywhere. Hell, you could have them stealing titles and having their own matches with those titles on the line and all sorts of crazy stuff.

Maybe then, the fact that Austin and Angle went over to the other side would not have seemed that dumb. Austin could have done the same routine with him feeling disrespected by the company's roster and so he was going to help these guys get contracts. Instead of a Winner Take All match at Survivor Series, we could have had a contract match or something with the new guys being a part of the roster if they won.

Maybe it would have been like the Nexus but it could have worked.

 

[Vader]

^You could be right. However, I think Vince wanted to marketing (albeit limited) of the WCW name, and also in his own shallowness he wanted to parade his success I'm sure.

Any WWE guys coming over to the Alliance, especially Austin who was so instrumental in WCW's demise, made very little sense even in story.

I agree that he didn't get real WCW. Real WCW, better or worse, was typified as older established wrestlers. The best out of this that Vince got was DDP, and he seemed pretty intent on burying him. WWE didn't get Sting, Flair, Luger, Steiner, etc. He got the WCW mid-card because the established stars would have been out of his price range given he preffered to push younger guys, and wouldn't want to come to the WWE just to discredit their careers (since many of them lingered around TNA for years to come they were still interested in wrestling).

 

[Vader]

I think at the end of the day, there was, and is a market at various demographics for wrestling. This has been proven by the fact that ECW, WWE, and WCW were competitive with one another at one point and time.

As all this happened in the Ruthless Aggression era, I would have ran the Invasion angle and expose the audiences to the various promotions for about a month or so. After that point, I would have taken stock of my superstars and who has the most potential in what kind of setting. Before people forgot the brandings of ECW and WCW, I would have given them their own individual shows. WWE would be my TV-14 programming. WCW would be my TV-PG, and ECW would be TV-MA.

Basically Vince incorrectly assumed that Smackdown meant more than WCW, or it wouldn't have preferred a roster split under the same time frame over individual branding.

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

I think at the end of the day, there was, and is a market at various demographics for wrestling. This has been proven by the fact that ECW, WWE, and WCW were competitive with one another at one point and time.

As all this happened in the Ruthless Aggression era, I would have ran the Invasion angle and expose the audiences to the various promotions for about a month or so. After that point, I would have taken stock of my superstars and who has the most potential in what kind of setting. Before people forgot the brandings of ECW and WCW, I would have given them their own individual shows. WWE would be my TV-14 programming. WCW would be my TV-PG, and ECW would be TV-MA.

Basically Vince incorrectly assumed that Smackdown meant more than WCW, or it wouldn't have preferred a roster split under the same time frame over individual branding.

They couldn't have done it with ECW. They were in bankruptcy litigation over the rights to ECW's carcass all the way until 2003. I'm pretty sure they were sued for using ECW trademarks during the actual Invasion angle since they didn't have the rights to use them yet.

 

[sMark]

In all honesty WWF did a good job with the talent pool that was avaible from WCW/ECW at the time, Vince couldn't bring in fat WCW contracts like Goldberg who's deal was 2.000.000 guaranteed per year, even when WWE got him in 2003 for 1.000.000 it caused multiple riots backstage, Sting was in 1.500.000 range, but he said he could cut the price and join WWF if WCW main eventers got treated better, you know, like main eventers should be, Mysterio was in 650.000 range...for comparison Angle was in 400.000 range...so the money WCW/AOL payed their stars was a big problem because of lockerroom full of guys who wrestled much better, destroyed WCW, but never saw this kind of paychecks...imagine what could happen if Vince actually signed Goldberg for 2.000.000 - the guy well known for short matches, short speeches and from the company that just lost the war...

Now, as far the whole Alliance thing go, couple of things could and should be done better/different:
1) DDP should stay in main event, his lose to Sarah was as disgusting as it could get, the guy who agreed on half of his payment just to join WWF and was fan favorite was turned heel and jobed out, signaling the rest of WCW talents who still thought on a possibility to jump ship (Sting for example) that this just doesn't worth it.
2) RVD should be pushed harder to get more starpower, the guy was already a fan fav and could add more popularity to the weak Alliance
3) Buff Bagwell should not be fired, again it's all about starpower, he could be used in massive matches only if he wasn't anything good in the ring, but at least his name was famous enough at the time, and he could talk.
4) Angle/Test/Christian should never join Alliance - these guys had nothing to do with either WCW or ECW, so why they was there?
5) Big Show/Radicalz should join Alliance ASAP - Big Show was a main event player in WCW, thought he was injured and didn't appear until November, his late joining could give Alliance team a boost at Survivor Series, while Radicalz did nothing the whole year, the names of Eddie, Malenko & Saturn should be much better than Hugh Morrus, Mark Jindrak & Mike Sanders. Some will say Jericho should join Alliance as well, but i think he was too much WWF style of worker and too popular as a face to change anything, while Radicalz & Show could use this chance.
6) Haku should join Alliance as well - too bad Rikishi was injured or both of them could be a part of Alliance, the guy was still under WWF contract but did nothing, sure he needed a manager, but Heyman was always there to do a promo part.
7) WCW & ECW separated trademarks should be droped after Invasion PPV, - to show their union & to hide the fact that there wasn't much WCW guys at all. The new logo should be created, maybe leaving WCW letters in it somehow, since the first plan was to run WCW shows on Monday nights after Invasion is over.

So, even with the talent WWF really had under their contracts in 2001, Alliance could look like this:

- Shane Mcmahon, Stephanie Mcmahon - co-owners
- Paul Heyman - spoke person/manager

- Stone Cold - major star
- Booker T - main eventer
- DDP - main eventer
- Sting - main eventer - join around the Summerslam time,
after he had a proof he will not get buried like in reality DDP was
- Big Show - join after he get clear to compete after his injury (around november),
used as main eventer
- Buff Bugwell - used as uppermidcarder, mainly in tag and other multiple person
matches to help hide his not very good in ring ability
- Haku - used mainly as enforcer to do the dirty work , multiple person matches,
managed directly by Paul Heyman
- Rob Van Dam - midcarder to grow into maineventer
- Rhyno - uppermidcarder
- Raven - the guy who competed in both WCW & ECW should be in it,
fights for Hardcore title, used in multiple person matches
- Dudleys - Alliance neede a strong tag team, so these guys stays in
- Radicalz - but face it 1 tag team is not enough, these guys also could be used as individual talents
- Billy Kidman - it's a shame WWF wasn't willing to get Rey Mysterio, so the next big thing to Rey is replacing him
- Shane Helms - the guy who will become the Hurricane should still be in
- Chavo Guerrero - this guy could wrestle in Cruiserweight division, be tag team partner for Eddie, or part of Radicalz, either way he was usefull
...

I think i will stop here, since 18 people is big enough number for the group, and frankly you can't add anything else significant anyway.

 

[WWEWrestleFest]

First off, Vince should have either paid the top WCW guys to come over right away, or waited until their contracts were up and then then done the invasion angle once he had signed them all to WWF contracts.

Once you have all the top guys, Hogan, Savage, Hall, Nash, Steiner, Bagwell (people hate on him these days, but he was pretty over in the late 90s), Sting, Luger, DDP, Goldberg, Booker T, Ric Flair, then you do the angle.

At WrestleMania, you have the main event, Austin vs Rock or whatever, they're wrestling and towards the end of the match, out come the nWo. Hogan, Hall and Nash. They attack Austin and the Rock. Out come the other top WWF guys, Undertaker, Triple H, Kane, Foley, to fight off the nWo, but then other nWo members show up, Savage, Steiner, and Bagwell. The nWo has the advantage and WWF guys are down.

Then Sting drops from the rafters with a bat. The nWo clears. The other WCW stars show up and get in the ring. The nWo's outside the ring looking scared. Guys like Austin and the Rock start to get back on their feet. Suddenly, Sting attacks Austin with the bat, Goldberg spears the Rock, and the nWo and WCW team up to attack all the WWF guys.

Eric Bischoff grabs a mic. Looks at the fallen WWF wrestlers, and says "The main event of WrestleMania... So THIS is the pinnacle of professional wrestling? No no no.. THIS" (he points to Hogan's WCW belt) "This is the pinnicale of professional wrestling." Drag it out til SummerSlam, Hogan vs. Austin, biggest star of the 80s vs. biggest star of the 90s, biggest heel of the Monday Night Wars (other than non-wreslter Vince McMahon) vs. biggest face of the Monday Night Wars, WCW champion vs. WWF champion.. could have been the biggest angle of all time.

 

[whoopin' ass]

We all know why it failed - Vince's ego. This is the perfect example of your ego taking you down the wrong path. What if Vince had looked at it differently? What if he simple thought "let me show you want I can do with these pieces that you couldn't"? It is so simple - you have all the same people that Turned had and failed with, show them why you are a genius and make them a success. Ultimately you own both companies so the success is yours. Instead of using his ego to make WCW and the Invasion a success, he used it to crush WCW. That is why he is not the genius or businessman everyone thinks he is - anyone who is supposed to be a mad genius like him would have done what made him the most money and that wasn't screwing up a money making angle like this.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

We all know why it failed - Vince's ego. This is the perfect example of your ego taking you down the wrong path. What if Vince had looked at it differently? What if he simple thought "let me show you want I can do with these pieces that you couldn't"? It is so simple - you have all the same people that Turned had and failed with, show them why you are a genius and make them a success. Ultimately you own both companies so the success is yours. Instead of using his ego to make WCW and the Invasion a success, he used it to crush WCW. That is why he is not the genius or businessman everyone thinks he is - anyone who is supposed to be a mad genius like him would have done what made him the most money and that wasn't screwing up a money making angle like this.

I wouldn't call the Invasion "a failure", it was still a hugely popular angle but it definitely wasn't as good as it could have been. Like you say, it definitely was used as a way of stroking Vince's ego and emphasising once again that WWF was the superior brand.

As has been covered several times, alot of the top WCW guys were happy to sit at home and see out their contracts rather than coming to WWE and receiving 50c on the dollar on their remaining contracts. Wrestlers like Nash, Hogan, Mysterio, Goldberg etc all chose that option and the only "major" names that came to WWF immediately were DDP and Booker T, meaning the Alliance suffered from a lack of star power from the start- which is why Austin, Angle etc were added to beef out their roster.

I do think the Invasion could have taken place at a later date, was I've posted before in this thread. Instead of summer 2001, it could have occured a year later when the nWo, Mysterio, Flair and others were contracted to WWE. Perhaps by then, Goldberg and Steiner could have been persuaded to come over sooner than they did as well.

 

[timothy26]

It was a weird little era in the WWE timeline. It was very much just to stroke Vince's ego, in my opinion. Few of the top WCW guys apart from Booker T and DDP came over and most of the talent got buried anyway. The whole thing with Austin being a part of the invasion even though he was a WCW guy for a few years didn't really make sense or work for me as a fan. It would have worked better during 2002 / 2003 when the roster was stacked.

From 2001 to 2002 they could have ran Smackdown as WCW with the guys they had and maybe added a couple of WWE guys for roster depth, ran the WWE storylines on RAW as business as usual, not giving too much acknowledgement to the WCW show. Had a couple of WCW matches on WWE PPV's.

Then once the rest of the bigger names came in around '02 '03 have them invade RAW and vice versa and run that angle for about a year, adding the guys who came along like Scott Steiner and Goldberg.

I know they kind of did that with the brand split but what I mean is by putting more emphasis into the idea that WCW (Smackdown) was a separate brand and not burying the WCW guys as much.

I guess it would have been an issue if the WCW brand had gotten over more than the WWE brand and fans cheered for the WCW guys and that sort of thing but it would have been fun to watch.

 

[TDFG]

Look at the main event from Survivor Series Team WWF v Team WCW.

WCW had Booker T as the only guy out of that team that actually arrived as part of the invasion.

Having Austin & Angle turn on WWF and also include ECW in the WCW faction made the storyline horrible, as did some of the contracts that WWF bought out i.e. Stasiak, Stamboli, Sanders.

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

With the talent they had, they needed to solidify DDP and Booker T as bigger threats. But they didn't have enough drawing power from WCW, so they needed to add in former ECW stars. They also never should have turned Austin heel - at the beginning of the Invasion he came back as a babyface and was insanely over. But Team WCW had little star power, so they decided to double down on his heel turn, whereas it probably should have been Angle or Jericho.

But out of the WCW guys they had... without any WWF turns or adding in ECW the below is probably the best they could have done. And they should have established DDP and Booker T better:

Steve Austin, Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho
vs
Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, William Regal, Lance Storm, Buff Bagwell

 

[GetDown]

[YOUTUBE]VsF2l8c5Os8[/YOUTUBE]

 

[whoopin' ass]

I was disappointed in the Invasion angle just like everyone else but one thing I have figured out over the years is that for them to have done it right, they would have had to change things right from the start. They should have never announced the purchase without securing a tv spot first. That put expectations soooooo high to begin with that they screwed themselves right from the start. Other problem is how much do you use old WCW storylines. People mention the nWo being part of Team WCW but why would they be? Really, there would be no need to the nWo to be part of them since they wanted to take WCW down. In this case, shouldn't they really be part of Team WWF or a totally separate team? I think you are starting to see the issues I mean.

Personally, i would have let WCW close and them bring a handful of guy over to the roster - midcarders, Booker T, maybe a couple top names but no nWo. Over the course of about 6 months, have them lose and be treated as outsiders that no one likes. Then more WCW guys start showing up - a slow invasion where you start getting bigger names. Now WWF is getting worried - what are all these former WCW guys doing here? As they start going at it, the nWo shows up and starts fighting with WCW again. People think it is a bit of a rehash but you only do that a month until they turn on WWF as well claiming they were the top guys in both companies and they are back to take over. Not only do you now have your Invasion, you have the Monday night wars in one company. Reason why you take 6-12 months to do all this is so you can look at the wrestlers and figure out exactly why they would work with or fight against certain guys so it makes sense. But you would have made tons of money - enough to pay for the WCW guys and to give the WWF guys extra money. You could have had each team recruit new wrestlers so you wouldn't have had to use all your top guys all the time. I think it would have worked but you just had to be careful that things made sense and that you didn't toss people together just because.