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During the height of the 1995-2001 Monday Night War, between the WWF and WCW, fans openly debated who would win inter-brand matches between the company's biggest stars.
Fans salivated at the prospect of The Undertaker vs Sting, Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Goldberg, Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair and The Rock vs Hulk Hogan.
Some of those matches we got to see eventually; others we didn't.
In March 2001, Eric Bischoff's Fusient Media Ventures company withdrew from their purchase of WCW, after Time Warner executive, Jamie Kellner refused to air the company's programming regardless of who was in charge. As Bischoff would later declare in interviews; "without the TV time, WCW wasn't worth anything."
That allowed WWF head honcho, Vince McMahon to swoop in and purchase WCW and the contracts of many of its mid card wrestlers for a paltry sum of $2 million.
Wrestling fans the world over salivated at the prospect of a WWF booked WWF vs WCW war. However, the invasion didn't work out as the fan-base hoped and is considered one of the most botched storylines in wrestling history.
The appetite was clearly there, when the July 22nd, 2001 pay per view, Invasion pulled a whopping 770,000 pay per view buys. In 2018, more than 17 years later, that remains a record for a non-WrestleMania event. Invasion pulled more orders than any Royal Rumble, SummerSlam or Survivor Series event in history. Consider that for a second.
The mind boggles at how many buys a card featuring the likes of Sting, Ric Flair or Goldberg could have drawn.
So, why didn't the invasion work?
Aside from the obvious lack of star power on the invaders' side; the only main event talent to participate from WCW were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, the focal reason for the failure of the storyline was the WWF's inability to bring itself to book its former sworn enemies as the equal of the WWF superstars.
As a result, the "invasion" became a battle between two squads of WWF superstars and the storyline was terminated rather abruptly four months after it ostensibly began at Survivor Series in November 2001.
In the following slideshow, SK will outline the rules for rebooking the invasion and begin in re-booking the birth of the storyline.
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!
March 26, 2001
The seeds for the WCW/ECW storyline were sown on the March 26, 2001 Raw when WWF boss, Vince McMahon announced to the world on a dual broadcast of Raw and WCW Monday Nitro, that he had purchased WCW and won the six years Monday Night ratings war.
Initially, it was booked perfectly and little needs to be changed.
McMahon announced the firing of Jeff Jarrett, declaring that he was GG-OO-NN-EE, gone!
Later, on WCW Nitro, Booker T defeated Scott Steiner to become WCW World Champion. The title change made sense as Booker had signed on with the WWF and Steiner hadn't. In this alternate reality however, Steiner had signed on but Booker as WCW Champion still made more sense and that history will be adhered to. The in-ring action concluded with a match between Ric Flair and Sting which Sting won.
McMahon then sauntered down to the ring on Raw and read out a list of WCW superstar names:
Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Booker T, Buff Bagwell, Scott Steiner, Sting and Goldberg.
All got positive reactions except for Hogan and Luger. Why McMahon referred to Hogan who had left WCW in July 2000, is anyone's guess.
Shane McMahon stole the show, arriving live in Panama City at Nitro and declaring that his dad who had not signed the contract, instead wishing to do so at WrestleMania X-7, had been usurped and declared that he had instead signed on the dotted line and purchased WCW right from under his father's nose!
War was declared!
June 18, 2001 - Monday Night Raw
In reality, the invasion storyline was put on the backburner following WrestleMania X-7 as WWF tried to find a network to broadcast a new WCW show booked by themselves.
However, as WWF had spent the preceding six years denigrating WCW and the fact that the once prosperous company lost over $60 million in its final year of operation, that was a non-starter.
The first real sense of invasion came through a stalker storyline in which a mystery man, who turned out to be DDP stalked Undertaker's wife, Sara and unveiled himself on the June 18, 2001 Raw.
In the re-booked version of the storyline, these events have been altered.
In the weeks preceding June 18, 2001, The Undertaker and Kane are separately attacked by two men, wearing balaclavas. Undertaker and Kane are continually outsmarted and left laying until the big reveal on the June 18 episode that DDP and Lex Luger are the masked men.
June 24, 2001 - King of the Ring 2001
This event will play out exactly as it did in reality, except with the DDP/Undertaker segment removed.
Booker T's attack on Stone Cold during the main event would take place exactly as it did.
June 25, 2001 - Monday Night Raw
This show, once more, would remain exactly as is, with Booker T delivering a scissor kick to Vince McMahon to close the show with Jim Ross declaring "the battle lines have been drawn!"
July 2, 2001 - Monday Night Raw
Linda McMahon declares that the July pay per view will be renamed from Fully Loaded to Invasion and feature WWF vs WCW matches and will be headlined by a clash between five WWF wrestlers and five WCW stars.
The main event saw Booker T clash with Stone Cold, with Shane McMahon in Booker's corner and Vince McMahon and Kurt Angle in Stone Cold's.
The match ends in a No Contest, when Scott Steiner interferes on behalf of Booker.
Shane celebrates with Booker and Steiner as the show closes.
July 9, 2001 - Monday Night Raw
Unlike the original version, there would be no ECW intervention at this point in the new re-booked invasion.
Shane McMahon opens the show, with Scott Steiner, Booker T, DDP and Lex Luger and declares the final member of his team is the greatest champion in the history of WCW. None other, than the 16 time World Champion, Ric Flair!
Flair, in all his pomp and glory, declares his hatred for Vince McMahon and that the elder McMahon showed him no respect when he competed in the WWF between 1991 and 1993, despite winning the WWF Championship twice in that period.
Ric Flair challenges Stone Cold to a WWF Championship match on the following week's episode of Raw.
July 12, 2001 - Smackdown
As in the original version, a desperate Vince McMahon invited Stone Cold to the ring and insisted he needed the "old" Stone Cold who was a "beer-swilling, foul-mouthed SOB" to lead Team WWF into battle versus Team WCW.
Stone Cold walked away, not willing to change his personality to the pre-WrestleMania X-7 version of the "Rattlesnake."
Vince McMahon is aghast.
July 16, 2001 - Monday Night Raw
Stone Cold is a no-show for his planned WWF Championship bout with Ric Flair, Instead he is shown drinking a nearby bar mulling over Vince McMahon's appeal last week on SmackDown.
Flair calls Stone Cold gutless and states he will be waiting for Stone Cold all night and the title match has been re-arranged to take place in the main event.
Throughout the night, WCW wrestlers target WWF talent, face and heel alike, taking everyone out.
Vince McMahon calls an emergency meeting with the remaining roster and states that he knows he has treated some of them badly in the past but the threat from WCW is a threat to the very existence of the WWF and he needs their help to repel the forces of WCW.
Classy Freddie Blassie delivers a rip-roaring speech inspiring the roster and a watching Stone Cold.
Stone Cold arrives at the arena as Flair and the WCW roster wait, taking out everyone that moves with Stone Cold stunners to close the show.
July 19, 2001 - SmackDown
The main event of the show features Big Show challenging Booker T for the WCW Championship.
Stone Cold spends the night letting himself into WCW talent's locker rooms and beating them up, to allow Big Show to challenge for the WCW title with no outside interference.
However, in said match, Kevin Nash interferes to cost Big Show the title. Stone Cold runs out for the save.
That sets up the re-booked Invasion pay per view, four nights later.
Invasion pay per view - July 22, 2001
The original Invasion pay per view had 11 matches, which led to seven of them lasting less than 10 minutes. In order to produce a more balanced show, as well as reduce the number of mid-card encounters, the re-booked card has reduced the number of bouts to seven.
Don't forget that in SK's version of the Invasion pay per view, the ECW invasion has not yet occurred.
Re-booked card (winners emboldened):
Inaugural Brawl:
Team WWF (Stone Cold, Kurt Angle, Undertaker, Kane & Chris Jericho) vs Team WCW (Booker T, DDP, Ric Flair, Scott Steiner & Lex Luger)
Trish Stratus & Lita vs Torrie Wilson & Stacy Keibler
Kevin Nash vs Big Show
Billy Kidman vs X-Pac
Edge & Christian vs Lance Storm & Mike Awesome
Bradshaw & Faarooq vs Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire
Earl Hebner vs Nick Patrick
This card would give Team WCW the 4-3 win and much like the original show would feature Stone Cold turning on Team WWF and joining Team WCW.
Eric Bischoff makes an appearance near the end of the bout interfering on behalf of Team WCW while Jim Ross goes apoplectic on commentary.
Following the bout, Stone Cold teases stunning Bischoff, the man who fired him from WCW back in 1995, but instead embraces him, as he celebrates with Bischoff and Shane McMahon.
The next night on Raw, things would begin to get Extreme!
