Criticism of the Invasion is one of my single biggest pet peeves.
Why would it be!? The 'Invasion' angle is widely recognized as the most screwed up angle of all time.
Vinnie Mac squandered millions of dollars and the opportunity to book the most exciting and lucrative Wrestling angle of all time.
The fact that you fail to see this and become offended when the 'Invasion' is put under the microscope for what it really was, shows you haven't been watching Wrestling all that long and certainly not during Dubya-See-Dubya's heyday.
The solid fact remains, Vince and Kevin Dunn's insecurities and ego's got in the way of Pro Wrestling's version of Utopia!
As a then 15 year old in 2001, I was almost literally salivating at the mouth at the seemingly endless possibilities and opportunities the WWF buyout of WCW offered.
To this day, as a Wrestling fan of more than twenty-four years, I will never fully understand just how Vinnie Mac and Co. allowed themselves to systematically destroy what should have been the hottest angle of all time.
Russo's fantasy booking is what it is: fantasy.
Precisely, and Vinnie Ru alludes to this several times throughout the feature.
Here are just a few factors that Russo and others simply glance over:
1) Contracts. Kevin Nash has spoken at some length about this. Nash, Hogan, Hall, Sting, Flair, Goldberg were signed to personal services contracts with AOL/Time Warner. WWE did not have the option of simply taking these contracts with their purchase of WCW. WWE would have had to get these guys to breach their existing deals and sign WWE deals.
This is true to a certain extent, However headliner's such as Nash, Flair, Sting etc...were all offered roughly 50 cents in the dollar on the remaining value of their Time Warner contracts.
Obviously, most of the big WCW players chose to sit home and collect on their Time Warner deals and then open negotiations with WWFE once every last cent was deposited into their bulging accounts. Fair enough.
However, there was no legal clause at any stage that prevented any WCW star from negotiating with the WWF post March 2001.
In fact, Time Warner would have been thrilled for more to accept early buyouts from their deals for glaringly obvious reasons.
For argument's sake, let's just say each guy was due $2 million from AOL/Time Warner, so in order to get 6, Vince needs $12 million. But that's only to meet their current deal. Why would any of those 6 guys give up $2 million to do nothing, in order to work for $2 million? The point is that Vince would have to guarantee the full amount of their existing deals PLUS a WWE deal commensurate with what each guy believed themselves to be worth.
One of the most consistent and believable rumors of that time of why Vince didn't pull the trigger on signing the Goldberg's, Nash's and Steiner's etc. initially was due to the likely uproar from his existing talent pissing and moaning over pay.
At that time, Goldberg, Nash, Sting and so on would have been worth EVERY penny you paid them in 2001. For starters, at that time, Goldberg would have paid for his contract in full and then some after just one PPV appearance!
However, it's worth noting when Goldie, Nash, Hall etc. all did eventually sign with the 'E, they all accepted huge pay cuts from what they'd become accustomed to in WCW.
Nash for instance, by the time WCW folded, was on roughly US$1.625 Million per annum guaranteed.
When He signed with the WWF in November 2001, it was for US$750 000 guaranteed.
Bottom line is, at the time of the 'Invasion', the WWF was drawing very regular sell-outs wherever they went and the Nielsen's were still strong. He could have afforded them all no problem.
So now imagine you're a top WWE guy: You see that Vince has signed 6 guys from a company whose ass you've been kicking in the ratings for HUGE guaranteed money PLUS the type of money you're making...or maybe not making if suddenly those guys are working in top spots. Are you not going to knock on Vince's door and demand MORE than what the 6 FAILED WCW guys are getting? And if you don't get it, do you go home or just do everything you can to bury Vince's 6 new golden boys?
This is a valid point. But in my opinion, the fault would lie with Vince and his lieutenants.
There has always been an unwritten rule, especially in the WWF/E, that if a Wrestler has a big money contract, He should be pushed to the moon whether or not He could draw or perform at that high level (I.E. Kevin Nash circa. 2003)
Having said that, business is business and eventually, all would have gotten with the program.
People need to understand that if you're Vince, you see what would essentially be signing WCW type contracts as opening Pandora's box to all of WCW's financial problems. The money Vince would be on the hook for would be big money to not only get WCW guys, but to keep his existing guys happy.
Not really...
WCW's financial problems ran far deeper than just bloated contracts.
Flying in over two hundred guys each week for TV, Creative control given to most of the headline crew and the nonchalant attitude WCW executives clearly espoused when the product took the u-turn into the shitter in the spring of '99 to name but a few.
As stated above, the WWF/E coffers were overflowing with cash at that time, and knowing the figures that guys such as Goldie and Nash did eventually sign on the dotted line for, shows the financial strain to be almost non-existent.
Also, it's worth noting that when Vince did finally get the signatures He wanted, He not only signed them a year or more too late, But also booked ALL of them so damn poorly that those discounted deals did become a liability in the end. Totally avoidable in my opinion.
2) WCW went out of business.
Well...technically...no it didn't. It was heading that way though.
In actuality, Time Warner/AOL suit
Jamie Kellner is the one man who "killed" WCW.
By removing it's product from the Turner owned stations after the merger with AOL.
It's also worth mentioning, that even when WCW was the number one Wrestling Promotion in the entire world (1997) and was making pots of dough, it was still the black sheep of the Turner family in the view of many Turner bigwigs.
Also, the then impending sale of the company in January 2001 to Eric Bischoff and his associates from Fusient Media Ventures filled many with a glimmer of hope at the time. That is, until Kellner's announcement put that plan to rest.
Let's remember that WCW was so valuable that Vince bought them for a song. The WCW brand had been decimated by 2001 and the names on the marquee during WCW's fall are the exact same names that Vince would be spending all that money to sign. Imagine you own WWE, a public company, which means your personal wealth is directly tied to price per share.
Vince and the WWFE purchased WCW, the contracts of 24 under card performers and the WCW videotape library for a paltry US$2.2 Million plus fees and legal costs.
Whereas, just over one year earlier, WCW had been valued at US$350-$400 Million. The loss of TV (Kellner) hurt WCW's asking price dramatically.
But I'll also concede that yes, WCW through it's mistakes, devalued itself a great deal too.
Are you really going to splash a ton of money on wrestlers who could not draw only months and years earlier on the promise that rehashing their thoroughly played out WCW characters and stories on WWE TV will show a return on this massive investment?
Well, erm...yes. The allure of a legit WCW vs WWF feud at that point in history was astronomical!
With the assistance of WCW's tape library the angle could have been huge!
Remember, Nitro as it was approaching some of it's lowest numbers in the Nielsen's, still had as many North American viewers as WWE receives Today!
The total combined audiences for WCW and the WWF as well as the actual dream matches that such a feud had the potential to yield could have and would have been enormously successful.
To state that it wouldn't, or to even have concerns that if booked correctly that it couldn't deliver, sound very much like the ramblings of a WWE spoon-fed mark who has acquired any Wrestling knowledge directly from biased WWE DVD/Book releases.
Would you not recall that it was the stagnation of character and story alike that helped make WCW a worthless brand that you paid virtually nothing for? Would you not think that spending your money based on angles that would have been huge 3-4 years earlier, rather than based on what those angles are worth in 2001 might be unwise and the move of a fan, rather than a businessman? What reason would you have to believe that you could ever grow WWE's business to even greater heights (which were at already previously unimaginable levels) and ultimately both recoup the massive investment and make even greater profits?
Once again, the fall from grace that many WCW stars suffered during it's fairly rapid decline are in no way indicative of person A or person B's ability to draw if handled correctly.
WCW's headline crew (who spent much of WCW's final year in business inactive anyway) still had huge name value in 2001.
Especially in dream scenarios opposing the WWF's elite.
3) WWE was doing amazing business in 2001. From Rock to Austin to HHH to Foley to Jericho to Taker to The Hardy's to Edge and Christian to The Dudley's, WWE had great wrestlers, great stories, great characters. These guys and other were responsible not just for killing WCW and winning the war, they were responsible for driving WWE business to such earth shattering highs that Wall Street decided they wanted to be in the wrestling business.
Why would Vince really want to take any time or attention away from those who were making him a billionaire in the baseless hope that he could revive guys that were largely killed alongside WCW, especially when those guys were more expensive than the winners he already had?
Yet again, true to an extent. Sure, the WWF was doing incredible business into the early part of 2001.
But by April 2001, ratings began to crash and the WWF/E entered a decline in business in which it never recovered and is literally still ongoing Today.
The matches and feuds which felt fresh and new in 2000 started turning sour in 2001. Jericho and Benoit clashed over and over...Austin and 'Taker resumed their done to death feud in April/May 2001.
The Dudley's, Hardy's and E&C rivalry had run it's course by mid-2001 and new and fresh concepts, along with new and fresh matches seemed in short supply in 2001.
The numbers reflect that.
I can see though, if someone wasn't watching the product back then, when viewed Today against the utter disgrace that is WWE TV in 2013, I can see how someone can be of the opinion that 2001 was great year....when it wasn't.
The WWF and Vinnie Mac rode that wave of fan goodwill and popularity for just over a year after Vinnie Ru bailed.
Imagine if you own Coca Cola and after years of competition, Pepsi is on their last legs. You see they're up for sale but the cost is too high. Then they lose all their distributorships and the sale price plummets to next to nothing. So you buy them...as much to make sure nobody else buys Pepsi and revives them to compete with you (which I believe was Vince's motivation, far more than using WCW or the library).
Now you own Coca Cola and Pepsi. You have every intention of continuing to leave Pepsi, Sierra Mist, Dr. Pepper, and all the other Pepsi soda's on the market, with some increased backing from the Coke team. You call a meeting with your team to come up with a plan moving forward. It's then that your production and marketing department reminds you that even though you now have access to all of Pespi's brand, your resources for making and pushing each soda remains the same. There are still the same amount of facilities, trucks, commercials, print ads, billboards, etc as before.
So with that in mind, do you decide to make and push Pepsi and Coke, Sprite and Sierra Mist, etc equally, ignoring the fact that Coke and Sprite kicked Pepsi and Sierra Mist's ass to the point you got them for nothing...or do decide that you'll only make enough Pepsi and Sierra Mist to meet it current demand in the marketplace, while keeping Coke and Sprite to as close to normal levels at possible and give the Pepsi products a fraction of the push from marketing compared to Coke products?
I'd choose the latter and take a wait and see approach. Maybe my my developers can improve the taste of Pepsi products and maybe marketing can find a way to package Pepsi products better. If they start selling better, then I'd revisit my initial decision. That's pretty much what Vince did.
Decent analogy used to get across the point you're trying to make. To cut a long story short, Vince didn't do a damn thing to help WCW reclaim any past glory. Just about every initial WCW signing in early 2001 were booked into oblivion and needlessly squashed.
Underwear-taker's then-Wife Sara Calloway pinned DDP on Raw, also let's not forget how Page was brought in, stalking Sara who resembled a toad when one glance at Page's then Wife Kimberly shows it just didn't add up.
It was stupid.
Guys who were stars in WCW became almost unrecognizable from their prior selves.
With intro themes altered and/or changed entirely, to being given characters and angles that were destined to fail.
Few were given any real chance.
He wanted to put Nitro on TV and keep WCW separate...like continuing to make Pepsi for Pepsi's existing audience. Then when USA put the kybosh on Nitro, he signed affordable talent and brought them to the WWE production team under the WCW banner...like continuing to tinker with Pepsi behind the scenes to see if you can make it better. The WCW talent that Vince kept past the Invasion angle were those deemed worthy of further investment...like Pepsi after the Coke team made them over.
I believe the original plan was to start shooting WCW TV within weeks of the buyout. The first WCW taping was set for June 9th, 2001 in Fairfax, Virginia.
The reason this never happened had nothing to do with the USA network...To put it simply, the frosty reception WWF fans greeted Booker T and Buff Bagwell with on the July 2nd, 2001 Raw broadcast was the catalyst for McMahon and Dunn to pull the plug on the proposed WCW re-launch.
Even if McMahon had stuck with that plan and kept WCW and the WWF separate, which would have required patience...He could have promoted a once a year extravaganza with WCW facing off against the WWF.
However, the post Vince Russo WWF I feel wouldn't have been able to make even that work in all likelihood.
At the end of the day, if you're going to fantasy book The Invasion, you have to substantively address all these issues and questions. It's not enough to just say "I'd pay whatever it took to get WCW's top guys and I'd tell the WWE guys to shut up and get over it" or "WCW was awesome once and having dream matches against WWE guys would have made a gazillion dollars" or "The WCW guys would have made more money and been bigger stars than the existing WWE guys, so of course I'd give them equal TV time and even in some cases make them look stronger than they guys I had been using to make HUGE money."
The fact is, a proper WCW vs WWF feud and all the dream bouts that spawn out out of it WOULD have "drawn a gazillion" dollars! For years and years, fans clamored for an interpromotional in-ring war between the two sides.
Knowing, in the back of your mind it just wasn't possible. Then, all of a sudden, here we are...the potential for the greatest angle in all of Wrestling history is handed to Vinnie Mac on a silver platter! Wrestling fans dreams were about to become a reality! But...we all know how it turned out.
In closing, I'd check out Jim Cornette's Guest Booking of the Invasion, as his is completely grounded in business reality. There are still issues with it and it's not awesome...but he understands why WWE couldn't get the top WCW guys, which Russo either doesn't understand or just chooses to ignore for entertainment purposes. I do tend to think the former, as he spends part of this shoot teasing that he has this secret, brilliant plan that would save wrestling...but he'll only share it once somebody pays him. Like they say, once a con man, always a con man...
Ugh...James. E. Cornette.
The man who is heralded by fellow hillbillies as some kind of Creative Genius. Let's look at the facts here:
Jim's baby, Smokey Mountain Wrestling...In it's entire existence never drew a dime. Even with a working agreement with the WWF, which made Cornette then envy of nearly every Wrestling promoter at the time. He still couldn't draw flies to a shit factory.
An agreement which saw mega stars such as 'Taker and 'HBK' appear on SMW events to little or no reward for fans and may as well have never happened.
Jim Cornette is the master of self-promotion and isn't nearly as great as he thinks he is.
Any Promoter that has been silly enough to give him the pencil has paid dearly for it. With the most recent example being the long-suffering executives at ROH/Sinclair Broadcasting Group and everything Corny put them through.
I will admit to enjoying Corny's on-screen work in the WWF over the years. He was gold alongside Yoko and Fuji and Owen and the Bulldog. Also, the angles he worked opposite Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario in '96 were entertaining too.
When it comes to creative though...Cornette is just awful. He has always been jealous of Russo for overshadowing him in creative meetings in '96 and going on to reinvent the entire business with his 'Attitude' campaign and taking the WWF to previously unimaginable heights.
Corny has no such glowing references on his Curriculum Vitae. Just failed stints booking in WCW, SMW, the WWF and finally ROH.
