I really enjoyed the Invasion storyline, in fact it is probably my favoruite storyline in the history of wrestling, but it could still have been so much better than it was. Vince rushed into it, he should have waited until some more of the BIG names (Goldberg, Steiner, Nash etc) had run their contracts down and then brought in the invading WCW as an unstoppable force, who could have dominated WWF for several months. Obviously Vince's boys would have come out on top eventually, but this was a feud that could have gone on for over a year, and made McMahon more money than any other storyline in history. People would have paid BIG MONEY to see WWF v WCW supercards with all the top names going at it, but Vince just couldn't wait to see his company beat WCW on TV one more time.
However, I dont think this is a sin against the legacy of WCW, as everyone knows the company eventually went bankrupt and out of business. It was just a huge wasted opportunity and just a sign of Vince's ego. I dont think anybody classes the hammering of the WWF owned WCW as the biggest memory of the original WCW.
For this reason, I am going to go with the lack of use of the WCW back catalogue.
For WCW, all people have to remember it by is the matches it put on, as the company no longer exists. There are hundreds of great matches that were held on Nitro and PPV over the years which fans today would love to see again. WWE (F) owns all the rights to these, and must surely know that they have a treasure-trove of matches which they could release on DVD with little or no effort and make a ton of money, but they choose not to. Why is this?
I think that Vince McMahon wants this generation of wrestling fans to forget that WCW existed, or simply to never know that it existed. With WWE focusing on PG programming at the moment, their target viewing audience is kids, and by the time they grow up WCW will have been dead for a long time, probably long enough for many of the names/stars of WCW to be irrelevant in the minds of these fans. It does seem that McMahon wants to pretent that WCW was never a threat to his company, and is trying to change history to make people believe that WWE is the only company that ever existed. This is why he never acknowledges former WCW or NWA or TNA champions on his programme.
I think it is an insult to wrestling fans that due to Vince's arrogance we can purchase hardly any footage or PPV's of the glory days of WCW, when during the Monday Night Wars the company was putting on great matches on a weekly basis with some of the most exciting cruiserweights in the business, and the nWo was revolutioning wrestling. I for one would definately like to own a collection of some of the best moments from Nitro and some of the most memorable WCW PPV's, but all we have to make do with is the occasional WCW match appearing on a biography DVD of one of WWE's wrestlers who used to wrestle in WCW (e.g. Jericho/Mysterio), and the "Rise and Fall of WCW", which is a very quick overview of the company.
All in all, it is sad to see Vince putting his ego before a massive opportunity which would definitely make him alot of money. Surely he must realise that the opportunity is there to release more of WCW's back catalogue, as it wouldnt cost him much to do so, and he is doing a huge sin against the legacy of World Championship Wrestling and its former stars by keeping the footage locked away from us.
Please Vince, for the fans, release the WCW back catalogue!
