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The Rules for Re-booking
One aspect of the invasion which badly affected the storyline's success is the dearth of main event WCW talent the WWF signed following the buyout.
The issue was that the majority of WCW's main event crew had direct contracts with Time Warner, not WCW.
So lucrative were they, that the likes of Goldberg and Scott Steiner were unwilling to buy themselves out. WWF were not willing to do so either.
The only WCW headline stars that did sign for the WWF upon the March 2001 buyout were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page; both of whom jumped at the chance to buy themselves out of their WCW deals and head for Stamford.
It's worth noting that the likes of Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and other big WCW names of the Monday Night Wars did not work for WCW in March 2001 and thus would not have made sense to join the Federation as part of an invasion storyline at that time.
The main event crew who were available and that WWF could have signed had they chosen to do so in March 2001 were as follows:
Sting, Scott Steiner, Ric Flair, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger and Goldberg.
Jarrett was persona non grata with the WWF ever since he left the company in October 1999, the day after his contract expired. Jarrett demanded and received a six-figure sum for one night's work so he could drop the Intercontinental Title to Chyna as planned at WWF's No Mercy 1999 pay per view.
I will not be including him in the rebooking article as there is no way the WWF would have signed him under any circumstances in 2001; this was evident by McMahon's public firing of him on the March 26, 2001 episode of Raw, following McMahon's announcement that he had purchased WCW.
Goldberg was injured and had been sidelined since January; therefore he won't be included in the re-booking until his injury was healed.
The others were all available and all would have signed on, if they had received a sensible financial offer and a worthwhile storyline, so they will be included within the re-booked storyline. Also, former WCW boss, Eric Bischoff would have jumped at the chance to have signed for the company, evidenced by the good nature he displayed when he actually signed for the promotion in summer of 2002, wherein he was the subject of on-screen ridicule on a near-weekly basis.
If done, correctly, then the invasion storyline could have conceivably led to years' worth of storyline. However, for the purposes of this series of articles and with the disappointing end to the nWO storyline in mind, the re-booked invasion will culminate at WrestleMania X-8; a full year of television since the company was purchased by WWF and four months after the original storyline concluded.
With that, let's waste no further time and re-book the 2001 WCW/ECW invasion!
