Rebooking the Invasion Angle Intro: Why The Original Invasion Angle Failed.
March 26, 2001 was a day that will live in wrestling infamy. It was this day when WCW Monday Nitro aired their final ever episode on TBS. Looking back on it, I can safely say that, while it was sad as hell to see, they did it to themselves. WCW deserved to go out of business. They got exactly what was coming to them. So many people ran that company into the ground. It's a miracle they lasted as long as they did. So yeah, they deserved to die. However, it also is a shame because now, not only were so many wrestlers out of a job, but fans didn't want to watch WWF. Some fans did however. And they finally had the chance to see WWF vs WCW once and for all. But, what they got instead, was the Invasion Angle.
You know wrestling fans, I think it's safe to say that the Invasion Angle is the worst professional wrestling angle of all time. For years, fans dreamed of seeing a SuperCard of WWF and WCW wrestlers facing each other on the same night. Just imagine if Vince managed to buy out the Turner contracted wrestlers like Kevin Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Randy Savage, Scott Steiner, Eric Bischoff, and of course Hulk Hogan. Also imagine if this angle was for one full year that culminated at WrestleMania X8. No question, it would have been the most money making angle of all time. Instead of that, we mostly just got the Triple A roster of guys like Kidman, Shawn Stasiak, Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, and, overall, just guys who weren't the true representation of WCW. No offense to those guys personally, but they weren't what made WCW beat the WWF's ass during the mid to late 1990's. And the one's we did get, who were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, were treated like they were not even a credible threat to the WWF guys. Hell, most of the WCW/ECW guys won matches over WWF guys because of interference and other bullshit at play, whereas the WWF guys always seemed to win clean most of the time. So, overall, the Invasion Angle failed because one thing: EGO. It was Vince McMahon's ego that ruined the Invasion Angle from the start. He chose not to bring in the big WCW names. He chose to make the WCW guys that were brought in look like jobbers and not even a slight threat to the WWF guys. And he chose to establish the WWF as the ultimate conquerors and WCW and ECW as nothing more than second rate. And he wonders why he's lost so many wrestling fans. It was this angle here. Because of this angle, millions and millions of wrestling fans no longer watch professional wrestling. Because they felt insulted by it. And Vince didn't care. I just hope it was worth it Vince. I hope it was worth putting your ego aside of something that could have boomed business and made you even more money than you already had. Hell, you could have become a Trillionaire if you did this angle right. But you didn't, because you chose to fuck it up. And, again, I hope it was worth it.
Well, lucky for the IWC/YWC, with wrestling fans, comes fantasy Booker's. We like to look back on failed angles that could have been big and made huge money and see how we could make them different and better. So that's why I'm here today. I'm going to rebook the biggest flop of an angle of all time: The Invasion Angle.
