Would it really have worked?

[Mr. HD]

I'm talking about the Invasion Angle. I know this is like beating a dead horse, but hear me out with this one.

Most of the gripes that people had with the angle is the lack of WCW Star Power and the amount of WWF superstars that "defected" to The Alliance.

But, for the sake of argument, let's just say, Vince's ego wasn't as big as Jupiter, there were no contract obligations, nobody was being selfish, nobody was injured, and WWF signed Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Jarrett, the nWo, all for the sake of putting on a great Invasion storyline. Let's say Triple H, Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Malenko and Road Dogg, and HBK were all available for the Invasion with The Rock joining later on.

Let's be honest, would this REALLY have worked? When you look at all the star power, would this Invasion really have been better? Could this storyline handle all this star power? Would guys like Kidman, Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, Palumbo, O' Haire, DDP and Booker T. be relevant like they were for the short amount of time?

Because out of all people that were missing from the Invasion angle, with all the WCW guys in place, I would've also taken Jeff Jarrett, Buff Bagwell, The Macho Man, and maybe Goldberg. I would've had Jarrett interfere in the Angle/Austin title match at Summerslam having Austin retain. Goldberg could've debuted after Summerslam and challenge The Rock for the WCW Title, and Bagwell could've gone after the European Title. Matt Hardy wasn't busy during Invasion.

Out of the WWF stars that were injured, I'd take Triple H, Benoit, and Guerrero. Triple H could challenge Austin, and Angle could go after Jarrett while Rock was busy with Goldberg. Benoit could stay with WWF and Eddie could defect to the Alliance and start a feud with those two guys.

My FINAL match would've been Shane, Austin, Jarrett, RVD, & Goldberg vs Rock, Y2J, Triple H, Angle, and Undertaker.

I was thinking about this while I rewatched the Invasion angle last night. Had the nWo joined, it would be all about the nWo, even after ECW had joined, Stephanie being revealed as the owner, and Shane coming out and wanting to take down his dad. Had Sting and Flair joined, Booker T. or DDP wouldn't have emerged as the faces of WCW, be relevant, and make this angle more personal.

But they had some talent. They could've reformed DX with just X-Pac and Billy Gunn, what happened to Buff Bagwell, and DDP? DDP and some other WCW stars vanished off the face of the earth pretty much after Summerslam.

Instead of Page, Booker, Rhyno and The Dudleyz vs Austin, Angle, Y2J, Taker, and Kane, it probably would've been. Hogan, Sting, Flair, RVD, & Dreamer vs Triple H, Austin, Angle, Taker and Y2J. Where does that leave guys like Kane, Booker, DDP, Benoit, Guerrero?

IMO, we could've done without all the star power to be honest.

The way I see, Vince built up this Invasion angle perfectly.

Shane buying WCW, and slowly WCW and ECW starts would interfere in WWF matches, WCW matches on WWF RAW, ECW joining the Invasion the way they did, and everything leading up to Invasion was great. I didn't even mind the Austin heel turn joining the Alliance either.

It was even going pretty good throughout Summerslam with Rock and Booker, Austin and Angle, etc.. I understand that too many WWF superstars joined The Alliance, but the way I saw, it was a mixture of Vince feeding his ego and for storyline purposes. The more WWF jumped ship, the more The Alliance was being weighed down, leading to their eventual downfall.

I'm just saying that this Invasion was fine the way it was. I know it would've been Spectacular with the nWo, Flair, Sting, Triple H, HBK, etc.. but would it have really been better?

Just something to think about I guess.

 

[Why Always Me]

With the likes of Hogan, Nash, Hall, Goldberg, Flair etc, it would of helped immensely. If Triple H and Benoit weren't injured then certainly Triple H and maybe Benoit could of been a part of the Winner take all Survivor Series match.

Instead of Shane McMahon, RVD, Booker T, Kurt Angle and Stone Cold v Big Show, Kane, Jericho, Undertaker and Rock, you could of had Goldberg, Nash, Hall, Hogan and Flair vs Austin, Triple H, Jericho, Undertaker and The Rock. You tell me which of those two matches are more appealing?

Having the likes of Angle/Benoit v RVD/Booker T on the undercard (any of them 4 could also of fit in the main event too), it would of been an embarrassment of riches. When the WWF and WCW titles were unified I would of liked to have had it so a WCW star like Booker T or Goldberg was the WCW Champion and The Rock, Triple H or Austin was the WWF Champion. To unify the titles I would of opened with a WWF Title match with the likes of Triple H, The Rock, Stone Cold, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle and The Undertaker, followed by the WCW Title match with Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scot Hall, Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. Then the main event would be champion v champion, take your pick, Austin v Goldberg, Rock v Hogan, Triple H v Flair spring to mind straight away.

After that I would of have the brand split but have ALL the Unified Champions on both shows, instantly making the titles more important. Oh the possibilities......

 

[LegendKiller716]

First of all, I liked the invasion angle. I think it was awesome. Would it have been better with bigger stars? Of course, but I mean, the situations your throwing out there are pretty Irrelevant. If Sting, Goldberg, Hogan, Macho Man, Nash, Hall, Booker, etc all came in, why would Austin and Angle jump ship? They wouldn't. Also Jarrett would have been fired regardless.

IMO if everyone jumped ship it would be WCW/ECW vs WWE who would recruit help from the nWo. My final match would be Hogan, Austin, Rock, Nash, Angle vs Goldberg, Booker, Sting, Flair, DDP. During the match Austin would pin Goldberg, but the final men in the match would be Hogan and Nash. This would make the nWo feel supperior to WWE and start a new feud with nWo taking on WWE, which WWE would win when Rock pins Hogan at Mania.

 

[jnapoli85]

Goldberg vs Austin would have been equivalent to Pacquiao vs Mayweather or Silva vs GSP. Thats how it should have all ended.

 

[EStreet]

two things doomed the InVasion Angle following the merge of WWF and WCW
1. The biggest WCW stars were not willing to come to WWF - Nash, Hall, Hogan, Goldberg, Sting
2. the angle got caught up in being an angle - it got too convoluted with swerves and teams and alliances and didnt feature what would have drew most - DREAM MATCHES

I would have booked a simple - "we are WCW" vs "we are WWF" and let wrestlers call out their "seen" counterparts.
Austin - Goldberg
Hogan - Rock
HHH - Nash
Undertaker - Sting
Angle - Flair
Foley - Hall
Jericho/Eddie/Benoit/Malenko/Saturn vs the new cruserweights of WCW and have it be an old breed vs new breed feud (ending with mutual respect and an innovative division of new talents and veterans

with these simple dream matches you could have built toward a huge Wrestlemania, at which there would be a mix of wins an losses for each side setting up no ultimate winner and a new batch of storylines through the new year and leading to a 2nd ultimate payoff at the next Wrestlemania.

some of those storylines could have included the reemergence of a NWO, maybe even recruiting Sting into the group as he rather work with NWO than Vince (exploiting the distrust that really there). Ditto with Goldberg, or Goldberg could just go out on his own as a one man wrecking crew who makes alliances with people to benefit himself. Through the year there could be ups and downs, (I would keep a storyline going with Taker and Sting of mind games and one-upping each other.) different sides would appear to be gaining control. If the ECW wanted to get invovled I would have set it up similar to how TNA did where certain guys could get involved sporadically and show up at events but never fully reveal themselves as a group - the ECW fans, still vocal at the time, would get such rise from this that a reveal would have paid off enormous at an event like the Rumble, if all of them were to be entrants and the question would be who brought them in - Stephanie with Heyman. Then that builds to Mania where you have WCW/NWO vs. ECW vs. WWF with alliance and backdoor agreements between wrestlers of the factions to help seize control. So many cool wrestler histories could have been explored with the Kliq being shown, Old School ECW guys like Foley and Jericho returning to their roots.

In the end I would have booked it with some sort of WWF wins - with guys like Austin, Rock, Taker winning to show the true faces of the attitude era with maybe a DX victory over NWO to proove that the whole time Attitude Era was victorious. Then break up the storylines and let guys intergrate and create their own feuds - maybe a Rock vs. Austin year long to one-up each other over who the top dog was to the next 'Mania.


Then again, this could never have worked because Vince wanted to destroy WCW and the top guys knew it and refused to jump ship.

 

[TheErikMoonShow]

Honestly, I dont think it would have worked at all the same with more star power. They would have had to re-write the whole idea and storyline due to the fact It would have been horrible to have Austin switch to a team boasting the likes of Flair, Nash, Sting and Goldberg. Notice I am leaving out Hogan, savage and Hall because all were pretty much not WCW at the time of the purchase. I think most people wanted the invasion to look like 1997-98 WCW vs WWF. WCW was weak when this all went down and thats just a fact.

Also to those who wanted an nWo involvement, well thats exactly what you got. If you want to analyze it the whole story line was an nWo parody. A group of upper-mid card talent wrestlers come in to invade a federation and then becomes a larger than life group due to a big swerve heel turn of the top face. Steve Austin played the Hogan of that group. Need another example to compare? Most people complain of the number of WWF wrestlers joining the alliance. Again what happened with the nWo? Nearly every WCW guy became an outsider just like in this incarnation. The invasion angle was nothing more than a sped up version of the nWo invasion. While most give it bad reviews I thought it was a great way to introduce wrestlers that maybe some people werent entirely familiar with and showed WCW the real way they should have ended the nWo. Just my opinion.

 

[Mr. HD]

Honestly, I dont think it would have worked at all the same with more star power. They would have had to re-write the whole idea and storyline due to the fact It would have been horrible to have Austin switch to a team boasting the likes of Flair, Nash, Sting and Goldberg. Notice I am leaving out Hogan, savage and Hall because all were pretty much not WCW at the time of the purchase. I think most people wanted the invasion to look like 1997-98 WCW vs WWF. WCW was weak when this all went down and thats just a fact.

Also to those who wanted an nWo involvement, well thats exactly what you got. If you want to analyze it the whole story line was an nWo parody. A group of upper-mid card talent wrestlers come in to invade a federation and then becomes a larger than life group due to a big swerve heel turn of the top face. Steve Austin played the Hogan of that group. Need another example to compare? Most people complain of the number of WWF wrestlers joining the alliance. Again what happened with the nWo? Nearly every WCW guy became an outsider just like in this incarnation. The invasion angle was nothing more than a sped up version of the nWo invasion. While most give it bad reviews I thought it was a great way to introduce wrestlers that maybe some people werent entirely familiar with and showed WCW the real way they should have ended the nWo. Just my opinion.

Excellent point. Never even thought of that. When people think of WCW vs WWF. They wanted WCW circa 97-98 vs WWF circa 99-00. Where it would be guys like the nWo against DX and Goldberg and Austin and etc..

We got whatever WCW had in its dying days vs WWF Roster in 2001. Vince made the best with what he had.

Great points. Glad somebody sees what I'm somewhat trying to say Haha.

 

[S.J. Maximus]

I would have booked a simple - "we are WCW" vs "we are WWF" and let wrestlers call out their "seen" counterparts.
Austin - Goldberg
Hogan - Rock
HHH - Nash
Undertaker - Sting
Angle - Flair
Foley - Hall
Jericho/Eddie/Benoit/Malenko/Saturn vs the new cruserweights of WCW and have it be an old breed vs new breed feud (ending with mutual respect and an innovative division of new talents and veterans

I don't think I've ever seen a better list of possible 2001 WWF vs. WCW matches in my entire life. The only thing I'd change was putting Jericho against Hall (how good would those promos be holy shit) and letting Foley be Commissioner like he was. To take Jericho's place in that battle would be X-Pac, Sean Waltman himself. Make it a big ppv where whoever gets the most wins gets to take over the company, and give all these great stars lots of promo time with the likes of Vince feuding with Bischoff as well. My supercard would look something like this:

Stone Cold Steve Austin def. Goldberg (5-4 WWF)

Hulk Hogan def. The Rock (4-4)

Triple H (w/Stephanie) def. Kevin Nash (4-3 WWF)

Undertaker def. Sting (3-3)

Ric Flair (w/ Arn Anderson) def. Kurt Angle (3-2 WCW)

Chris Jericho def. Scott Hall (2-2)

Jeff Jarrett, Booker T, DDP & Steiner Brothers def. Benoit, Kane, Big Show, Edge & Christian (2-1 WCW)

Vince McMahon (w/Shane) def. Eric Bischoff (w/Garett) 1-1

Rey Mysterio def. Eddie Guerrero (1-0 WCW)

 

[CrunKSinatrA]

Heck yea it could've worked. Instead of being a few month Invasion angle it could've been a couple year war storyline. With several story lines and feuds, stretching out the big feuds over all the big PPVs and smaller tag matches or specialty matches for all the others. It would've been like Sting vs Undertaker, Rock vs Goldberg, NWO vs ECW, HHH vs DDP, Radicalz vs Filthy Animals, Booker T vs Stone Cold, etc, etc. That's the main events for Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, Summerslam, and Survivor Series right there. And then next years PPVs just mix and match the previous with Stone Cold vs Goldberg being the big build up winner takes all at whatever Wrestlemania the couple year war story line ends at.
Also, the 3rd ECW show in addition to Raw and Smackdown could've been legit with all the superstars being spread out and giving each their own superstars and sharing PPVs. Heck they could probably do a Raw, Smackdown, and ECW PPV all in one month with the star power to carry the buy rates to make them all viable. Or big supershows and run up the price for SuperBowl-esque ads.
PLus careers could've been lengthened. Because instead of needing the Rock, HHH, and Stone Cold every Monday, Friday, and once a month on Sunday plus house shows, they could give them weeks off because Goldberg, RVD, NWO, and Rey Mysterio would be there to garner ratings.
Then people could go over and put other people over because they could beat another big name after losing to one. Hypothetically, Goldberg beats HHH, HHH beats RVD, RVD beats Goldberg and everyone goes home happy.

 

[relentless1]

i would have the final showdown look like this: WCW vs WWF winnder take all

Hulk Hogan vs Steve Austin (austin wins)

HHH & HBK vs Hall & Nash (nWo wins)

Goldberg vs Undertaker (goldberg wins)

Rock vs DDP (rock wins)

McMahon vs Bischoff (mcmahon wins)

Sting vs Kurt Angle (sting wins)

ahh the possibilities, if only mcmahon pulled his head out of his ass and ponied up the cash to get the marquee stars.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

The failure of this angle alone is proof that Vince doesn't care about "the business." Vince could have created something great, but instead destroyed a crazy storyline to pad his ego.

 

[The Brain]

I understand that too many WWF superstars joined The Alliance, but the way I saw, it was a mixture of Vince feeding his ego and for storyline purposes. The more WWF jumped ship, the more The Alliance was being weighed down, leading to their eventual downfall.

How was Vince feeding his own ego with the angle? Because WWF won? What did you expect? Would you really expect WCW to come in and beat the WWF? If that's not what you mean by Vince feeding his own ego, please explain.

ahh the possibilities, if only mcmahon pulled his head out of his ass and ponied up the cash to get the marquee stars.

Oh give me a break. The biggest criticism of WCW is how they threw ridiculous money at people and handed out a lot of bad contracts. So you're suggesting that Vince should have picked up all those bad contracts? That doesn't sound like a very smart business move. Of course the angle would have been more enjoyable with all the big names, but it just wasn't realistic. In the real world we can't just magically get something because we want it. It has to actually be feasible.

The failure of this angle alone is proof that Vince doesn't care about "the business." Vince could have created something great, but instead destroyed a crazy storyline to pad his ego.

Vince does care about the business. His business. Why should he hurt his business by taking on several overpriced contracts? Why don't you say that Hogan, Sting, Goldberg, Nash, Hall, etc. don't care about the business? They could have opted out of their existing contracts for more reasonable ones if they cared about being involved in the angle. Booker T did it. Instead they decided to sit home and get paid for doing nothing. There's nothing wrong with that but it seems to me they're a lot more guilty of not caring about the business than Vince.

These are just more examples of people jumping on Vince without considering the real facts just because they didn't get what they wanted.

 

[d_henderson1810]

I'm talking about the Invasion Angle. I know this is like beating a dead horse, but hear me out with this one.

Most of the gripes that people had with the angle is the lack of WCW Star Power and the amount of WWF superstars that "defected" to The Alliance.

But, for the sake of argument, let's just say, Vince's ego wasn't as big as Jupiter, there were no contract obligations, nobody was being selfish, nobody was injured, and WWF signed Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Jarrett, the nWo, all for the sake of putting on a great Invasion storyline. Let's say Triple H, Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Malenko and Road Dogg, and HBK were all available for the Invasion with The Rock joining later on.

Let's be honest, would this REALLY have worked? When you look at all the star power, would this Invasion really have been better? Could this storyline handle all this star power? Would guys like Kidman, Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, Palumbo, O' Haire, DDP and Booker T. be relevant like they were for the short amount of time?

Because out of all people that were missing from the Invasion angle, with all the WCW guys in place, I would've also taken Jeff Jarrett, Buff Bagwell, The Macho Man, and maybe Goldberg. I would've had Jarrett interfere in the Angle/Austin title match at Summerslam having Austin retain. Goldberg could've debuted after Summerslam and challenge The Rock for the WCW Title, and Bagwell could've gone after the European Title. Matt Hardy wasn't busy during Invasion.

Out of the WWF stars that were injured, I'd take Triple H, Benoit, and Guerrero. Triple H could challenge Austin, and Angle could go after Jarrett while Rock was busy with Goldberg. Benoit could stay with WWF and Eddie could defect to the Alliance and start a feud with those two guys.

My FINAL match would've been Shane, Austin, Jarrett, RVD, & Goldberg vs Rock, Y2J, Triple H, Angle, and Undertaker.

I was thinking about this while I rewatched the Invasion angle last night. Had the nWo joined, it would be all about the nWo, even after ECW had joined, Stephanie being revealed as the owner, and Shane coming out and wanting to take down his dad. Had Sting and Flair joined, Booker T. or DDP wouldn't have emerged as the faces of WCW, be relevant, and make this angle more personal.

But they had some talent. They could've reformed DX with just X-Pac and Billy Gunn, what happened to Buff Bagwell, and DDP? DDP and some other WCW stars vanished off the face of the earth pretty much after Summerslam.

Instead of Page, Booker, Rhyno and The Dudleyz vs Austin, Angle, Y2J, Taker, and Kane, it probably would've been. Hogan, Sting, Flair, RVD, & Dreamer vs Triple H, Austin, Angle, Taker and Y2J. Where does that leave guys like Kane, Booker, DDP, Benoit, Guerrero?

IMO, we could've done without all the star power to be honest.

The way I see, Vince built up this Invasion angle perfectly.

Shane buying WCW, and slowly WCW and ECW starts would interfere in WWF matches, WCW matches on WWF RAW, ECW joining the Invasion the way they did, and everything leading up to Invasion was great. I didn't even mind the Austin heel turn joining the Alliance either.

It was even going pretty good throughout Summerslam with Rock and Booker, Austin and Angle, etc.. I understand that too many WWF superstars joined The Alliance, but the way I saw, it was a mixture of Vince feeding his ego and for storyline purposes. The more WWF jumped ship, the more The Alliance was being weighed down, leading to their eventual downfall.

I'm just saying that this Invasion was fine the way it was. I know it would've been Spectacular with the nWo, Flair, Sting, Triple H, HBK, etc.. but would it have really been better?

Just something to think about I guess.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------'

I loved the Invasion Angle.

Triple H wasn't around, hogging the spotlight and burying people. I didn't have to hear Jerry Lawler's female voice (and instead we got Paul Heyman on commentary, the best freakin' announcer in WWF/WWE history). "Stone Cold" was a heel, which I wanted to a heel, which I wanted to see for years. And then the recruiting of WCW and ECW wrestlers. It was awesome. Shane and Stephanie bringing the rivals to overtake their father's business. This wasn't about one individual versus the other. The whole WWE was involved. This was WWE vs WCW (which everyone wanted to see). It was WWE vs WCW (which everyone also wanted to see). It was awesome!

I don't agree about the Alliance being buried. Booker T won the U.S. Title and IC Title. RVD became a mainstream star.

I wouldn't worry about not having Goldberg there. Goldberg is a sack of s... anyway! Do you know why he didn't sign at the time. He was still under contract with WCW, and insisted that he sit at home and pay out every last cent of his contract. WCW was bankrupt, but he didn't care. A greedier man in wrestling has never existed. He hated WWE nayway, and hated wrestling. He probably signed with WWE for one year because of the paypacket, the avaricious prick! I'm glad he wasn't part of it. He wouldn't have played a heel anyway, as he hated doing it in WCW, and was turned back immediately. I would have liked to see Rey Mysterio part of it, though!

 

[Mr. HD]

How was Vince feeding his own ego with the angle? Because WWF won? What did you expect? Would you really expect WCW to come in and beat the WWF? If that's not what you mean by Vince feeding his own ego, please explain.


These are just more examples of people jumping on Vince without considering the real facts just because they didn't get what they wanted.

What I meant with the ego thing is as the angle went on, we saw more WWF superstars jump to the alliance and saw less of WCW stars who were there. DDP vanished from the angle after Summerslam, Kanyon was never heard from again, Booker went from one of the biggest stars of the alliance to the backseat behind Austin, Angle, and eventually RVD, I don't know what happened to Kidman, and Palumbo and O'neill Haire were replaced with Kronik it seemed like. It's like he never gave most of them a chance. Unlesss there's something that I'm not getting.

And I'm not jumping on Vince at all, the whole premise of this thread is to just state my case on how having all this star power wouldn't have worked out, of which I guess I failed in doing.

 

[daddyJ_t]

alot of possibilities and i wont go too much into depth right now, but the best thing i liked about the invasion angle actually came after the angle ended itself. first goldberg, then flair and his war with vince leading to the "reluctant" being in of the nwo(cancer) bringing in all of these characters during the invasion might have seemed cool, but some wcw that were involvedin the main angle wouldve gotton lost with flair goldberg and nwo in the main storyline.

 

[The Brain]

What I meant with the ego thing is as the angle went on, we saw more WWF superstars jump to the alliance and saw less of WCW stars who were there. DDP vanished from the angle after Summerslam, Kanyon was never heard from again, Booker went from one of the biggest stars of the alliance to the backseat behind Austin, Angle, and eventually RVD, I don't know what happened to Kidman, and Palumbo and O'neill Haire were replaced with Kronik it seemed like. It's like he never gave most of them a chance. Unlesss there's something that I'm not getting.

And I'm not jumping on Vince at all, the whole premise of this thread is to just state my case on how having all this star power wouldn't have worked out, of which I guess I failed in doing.

I had a feeling I wasn’t understanding your point about Vince feeding his own ego. That’s why I asked you to explain if I was misinterpreting it with my comments. I don’t believe WWF stars jumping to the alliance had anything to do with ego. It was done out of necessity. The sides were too lopsided. WWF had Austin, Taker, Kane, Angle, Jericho, Edge, etc. Besides Booker (I don’t know why DDP wasn’t a focal point of the angle) WCW had a bunch of mediocre guys that people didn’t care about as much. No disrespect to the talent, but Storm, Awesome, Palumbo, Helms, Kidman, Stasiak, etc. just didn’t match up. Having Hogan, Flair, Nash, Hall, Sting, and Goldberg would have made a huge difference. Having Triple H, Benoit, and Guerrero available would have helped too. I don’t blame Vince one bit for not taking on the terrible Time Warner contracts, but the Alliance was clearly just the best of the rest and that’s why people didn’t care about it as much. I’ve often stated that the angle would have benefited had it been held off for a year when much more talent was available. The one who is most overlooked is Bischoff. He may have been the most valuable piece of all.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I posted this on another thread, but I think it fits great here. For the Invasion, I would have included the following Stars and Stables…

Survivor Series 2001

In this version of the “Invasion”…the War has just began.

Round One

Match One
Blue Word Order – Big Stevie Cool, Hollywood Nova, Da Blue Guy, and Taka Michinoku
vs.
ECW – Shane Douglas, The Sandman, Raven, and Taz

Match Two
New World Order – Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and The Big Show
vs.
WCW – Ric Flair, Big Van Vader, Booker T., and Sting

Match Three
NWA – Steve Corino, Jason Rumble, and The New Heavenly Bodies ("Casanova" Chris Nelson and "Vivacious" Vito DeNucci)
vs.
The Radicalz – Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho

Match Four
D-Generation X – Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Mr. @$$, and Road Dogg
vs.
WWF – Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Undertaker

Round Two

Match Five
The winner of match 1
vs.
The winner of match 2

Match Six
The winner of match 3
vs.
The winner of match 4

Round Three

Match Seven
The winner of match 5
vs.
The winner of match 6

I have a question. When advancing to the next round, should the winning team start back at full strength or should only the Survivors move on in the Tournament??

Imagine the longevity of the Invasion storyline if they had this many Stars available to them. It sure would not have ended at the 2001 Survivor Series. It may have even gone way past WrestleMania X8. It may still be going on today with the new faces. Imagine all the twists and turns during this expanding Invasion. I would like to think that even the 4 Horsemen could have made a WWE debut.

This would have been a storyline that could have lasted for a few years with Stars switching sides and splinter groups within the established boundaries. We could have seen the return of the Wolfpac, X-Factor, and a whole lot of other Stables from the not so distant past (remember we’re in 2001 here). Doing this could have probably delayed TNA’s success or destroyed Double J’s dreams altogether. Either way, this way would have been better than what we got.

 

[Fear&Loathing]

When vince brought the WCW stars in he totally avoided WCWs all time major draws the NWO, Ric Flair, Goldberg and sting and their all time top guys personally I think it was down to his personal ego because he wanted WCW to look weak after everything they had put him through and need WWEs top stars to defect if he put that all aside i think we would have had the greatest television WWE has ever produced maybe if it was the alliance vs WWE vs NWO it would have been an interesting story even DDP wasnt one of the alliances top guys.

if i could go back and change the 5 on 5 winner takes all Survivor series match i would have added the NWO in to the equation.

it should have been WWE Austin, Triple H, The Rock, Undertaker and Kurt Angle VS WCW/ECW Ric Flair, Sting, RVD, Goldberg and DDP VS NWO Hogan, Nash, Hall, Curt Hennig and Scott Steiner.

that would have been epic

 

[Mr. HD]

I had a feeling I wasn’t understanding your point about Vince feeding his own ego. That’s why I asked you to explain if I was misinterpreting it with my comments. I don’t believe WWF stars jumping to the alliance had anything to do with ego. It was done out of necessity. The sides were too lopsided. WWF had Austin, Taker, Kane, Angle, Jericho, Edge, etc. Besides Booker (I don’t know why DDP wasn’t a focal point of the angle) WCW had a bunch of mediocre guys that people didn’t care about as much. No disrespect to the talent, but Storm, Awesome, Palumbo, Helms, Kidman, Stasiak, etc. just didn’t match up. Having Hogan, Flair, Nash, Hall, Sting, and Goldberg would have made a huge difference. Having Triple H, Benoit, and Guerrero available would have helped too. I don’t blame Vince one bit for not taking on the terrible Time Warner contracts, but the Alliance was clearly just the best of the rest and that’s why people didn’t care about it as much. I’ve often stated that the angle would have benefited had it been held off for a year when much more talent was available. The one who is most overlooked is Bischoff. He may have been the most valuable piece of all.

I did some Homework on this. Page apparently got injured after Summerslam and wasn't on TV. But I did read that he was fully healed by late October 2001. I guess by then it was too late to bring him back because Kurt Angle had already joined The Alliance. They had Austin, Angle, Booker, RVD, and Shane. Where would DDP fit in? Unless they take out Shane, but DDP in and have had Shane face Vince in a one on one match....again.

But then again, they could've waited for Page to come back healthy and added him back to the storyline easily and put him back on The Alliance's 5 man team. . I don't even think his feud with Undertaker was given a proper ending. It ended in a Tag Team Cage Match with Kanyon. Or maybe Vince could've signed one more big name like Jeff Jarrett who was pretty much the top heel in WCW when it was dying that slow and painful death.

I get what you're saying about waiting for a year to get Flair, the nWo, etc.., but, I don't know if it was here, but someone said it perfectly, Vince wanted to strike the iron while it was hot. He wanted to make the angle happen now and keep the fans into it. Shane buys WCW and decides to invade a year later? I don't know if it would make sense. And a year of run-ins would get old.

I bolded the other part because I really think Flair, the nWo, Sting would've been THE point of the angle. It would've been all about those guys. DDP and Booker wouldn't have even been in the spots they were in. They would've made everybody else in The Alliance pretty irrelevant which I wouldn't have liked. At least with the WWF, guys like APA, Hardyz, Big Show, Edge were still relevant. But then Austin and Rock would be fighting over the lead on Team WWF. I don't know why, but I just feel like the angle wouldn't have worked with the nWo, or Flair, or even Sting for that matter. It would've turned into one big clusterfuck. Maybe somebody else can word what I'm trying to say better than I can, because I feel like I'm not making any sense.

I posted this on another thread, but I think it fits great here. For the Invasion, I would have included the following Stars and Stables…



This would have been a storyline that could have lasted for a few years with Stars switching sides and splinter groups within the established boundaries. We could have seen the return of the Wolfpac, X-Factor, and a whole lot of other Stables from the not so distant past (remember we’re in 2001 here). Doing this could have probably delayed TNA’s success or destroyed Double J’s dreams altogether. Either way, this way would have been better than what we got.

No offense, but if the Invasion really lasted a few years, I would've gotten bored of it. Even the actual Invasion angle started to lose its flavor around mid-October. Thank goodness Survivor Series was coming up. It was still enjoyable to watch, but the sizzle that it had in the Summertime wasn't there anymore.

When vince brought the WCW stars in he totally avoided WCWs all time major draws the NWO, Ric Flair, Goldberg and sting and their all time top guys personally I think it was down to his personal ego because he wanted WCW to look weak after everything they had put him through and need WWEs top stars to defect if he put that all aside i think we would have had the greatest television WWE has ever produced maybe if it was the alliance vs WWE vs NWO it would have been an interesting story even DDP wasnt one of the alliances top guys.

if i could go back and change the 5 on 5 winner takes all Survivor series match i would have added the NWO in to the equation.

it should have been WWE Austin, Triple H, The Rock, Undertaker and Kurt Angle VS WCW/ECW Ric Flair, Sting, RVD, Goldberg and DDP VS NWO Hogan, Nash, Hall, Curt Hennig and Scott Steiner.

that would have been epic

Here's the thing right here. nWo as a separate entity? This Invasion was about WCW/ECW vs WWF. The nWo separating on their own would've annoyed the hell out of me, because it would be all about them and the whole Invasion thing would've been a distant memory.

I feel like the nWo would've been too much for WCW/ECW and the WWF. Guys would jump to the nWo and The Alliance would eventually have to join forces with the WWF to take down the nWo. It would've been one big mess.

Simply put, it would've been WCW vs NWO all over again except this time, it would've been WWF/WCW/ECW vs NWO. I mean the idea sounds interesting on paper, but interpreting it back to TV, just doesn't work IMO.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I did some Homework on this. Page apparently got injured after Summerslam and wasn't on TV. But I did read that he was fully healed by late October 2001. I guess by then it was too late to bring him back because Kurt Angle had already joined The Alliance. They had Austin, Angle, Booker, RVD, and Shane. Where would DDP fit in? Unless they take out Shane, but DDP in and have had Shane face Vince in a one on one match....again.

But then again, they could've waited for Page to come back healthy and added him back to the storyline easily and put him back on The Alliance's 5 man team. . I don't even think his feud with Undertaker was given a proper ending. It ended in a Tag Team Cage Match with Kanyon. Or maybe Vince could've signed one more big name like Jeff Jarrett who was pretty much the top heel in WCW when it was dying that slow and painful death.

I get what you're saying about waiting for a year to get Flair, the nWo, etc.., but, I don't know if it was here, but someone said it perfectly, Vince wanted to strike the iron while it was hot. He wanted to make the angle happen now and keep the fans into it. Shane buys WCW and decides to invade a year later? I don't know if it would make sense. And a year of run-ins would get old.

I bolded the other part because I really think Flair, the nWo, Sting would've been THE point of the angle. It would've been all about those guys. DDP and Booker wouldn't have even been in the spots they were in. They would've made everybody else in The Alliance pretty irrelevant which I wouldn't have liked. At least with the WWF, guys like APA, Hardyz, Big Show, Edge were still relevant. But then Austin and Rock would be fighting over the lead on Team WWF. I don't know why, but I just feel like the angle wouldn't have worked with the nWo, or Flair, or even Sting for that matter. It would've turned into one big clusterfuck. Maybe somebody else can word what I'm trying to say better than I can, because I feel like I'm not making any sense.





No offense, but if the Invasion really lasted a few years, I would've gotten bored of it. Even the actual Invasion angle started to lose its flavor around mid-October. Thank goodness Survivor Series was coming up. It was still enjoyable to watch, but the sizzle that it had in the Summertime wasn't there anymore.





Here's the thing right here. nWo as a separate entity? This Invasion was about WCW/ECW vs WWF. The nWo separating on their own would've annoyed the hell out of me, because it would be all about them and the whole Invasion thing would've been a distant memory.

I feel like the nWo would've been too much for WCW/ECW and the WWF. Guys would jump to the nWo and The Alliance would eventually have to join forces with the WWF to take down the nWo. It would've been one big mess.

Simply put, it would've been WCW vs NWO all over again except this time, it would've been WWF/WCW/ECW vs NWO. I mean the idea sounds interesting on paper, but interpreting it back to TV, just doesn't work IMO.

You have a very very great point here. The New World Order would have been too big for the WWF / WCW / ECW Alliance. What if the New World Order was outnumber by the WWF / WCW / ECW Team and needed help…in the form of D-Generation X (maybe add X-Factor just to even the numbers up a bit more)!? That'll put butts in the seats in 2001!!