This is a discussion on The Invasion Angle: Was it really that bad? within the General Pro Wrestling : Classic & General forums, part of the Wrestling Forums category; This is discussed a lot in various threads so I thought it deserved a thread of its own.
The Invasion ...
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This is discussed a lot in various threads so I thought it deserved a thread of its own.
The Invasion Angle, love it or hate it, is something everyone who was watching wrestling at the time remembers vividly. Nowadays, most tend to be of the opinion that the angle was a flop, but at the time, I loved it. Sure I was a mark, and I wasn't familiar enough with WCW's product to care about the notable omissions such as Sting, Goldberg, Steiner etc. However, the Invasion Angle, for what it was, was great. I am guessing it was aimed at guys like me. Marks who thought the WWF was under serious threat from these outsiders. I hated Heyman and Steph and thought the deciding 5 on 5 elimination match at Survivor Series 2001 was extremely dramatic.
I know a lot of people have strong opinions on it, so I will wait for someone to come in and tell me it sucks.
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The main problem with it was that WCW/ECW was never a serious threat to the WWF. DDP quickly jobbed to Taker, Palumbo and O'Haire quickly lost the tag titles to Taker and Kane, Booker within 2 months would be The Rock's personal bitch, and all of the Alliance's successful members were WWF guys such as Austin, Christian, The Dudleys, Test, Rhyno and Shane McMahon. The one guy who excelled was Rob Van Dam.
The entire storyline was booked to quickly show that WCW was no match to the WWF. The only way WCW/ECW could even fight the WWF was using WWF guys.
If Vince wanted this to work, he would of had Booker T, DDP and RVD continuously go over the WWF's top stars of Austin, Angle and Taker.
Speaking of the WWF using WWF guys to be on the Alliance side, I still can't believe they actually had two McMahon's represent WCW and ECW. You had Paul Heyman, you did not need Stephanie. Vince should of spent a few more bucks to bring in Eric Bischoff to lead the charge of the WCW wrestlers, instead of Shane. Just like the previous 2 years, 2001 degraded into yet another McMahon vs McMahon feud.
This was just such a poorly booked story that only served the purpose of inflating Vince's already huge ego.
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The thing is, maybe I wasn't knowledgeable at all about the other companies, but that is what caused me to enjoy it, and I am willing to bet that there were a hell of a lot of other fans like me who watched WWF exclusively and, although I had heard of WCW and ECW, knew little to nothing about the companies and the wrestlers in them. I probably represented a sizeable percentage of the fanbase in that respect, and I guess you could argue that the angle was aimed at people like me rather than fans who were also familiar with the WCW and ECW products. For me, despite the absence of big stars and the fact that most of the top Alliance guys were traitors from WWF, it still felt like WWF was seriously at threat, and therefore, from a marks perspective, the angle worked well.
Sure, that is not to say it was a great angle, or at least not a greatly executed angle, but I think there were more positives to it than you are giving it credit for.
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I agree with pretty much everything Jim said, it eventually became a wwf vs wwf fued.
Though, having said that, from a wrestling point of view, it did create some very good matches.
Some of them were WWF against WWF admittedly though.
The best match I can think of from that period was Angle v Austin at Summerslam 2001.
Apart from that, Rock/Booker was good if I remember rightly. The Survivor Series Elimination match was a match I enjoyed, and Jeff Hardy v RVD at Invasion was entertaining.
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This was one of my most favourite times in wrestling. Mainly because of what Austin did during it. I watched RAW and SD with excitement seeing the character development.
Unfortunately, most expected something else, so they will never give credit to the great shows.
The thing is, maybe I wasn't knowledgeable at all about the other companies, but that is what caused me to enjoy it, and I am willing to bet that there were a hell of a lot of other fans like me who watched WWF exclusively and, although I had heard of WCW and ECW, knew little to nothing about the companies and the wrestlers in them. I probably represented a sizeable percentage of the fanbase in that respect, and I guess you could argue that the angle was aimed at people like me rather than fans who were also familiar with the WCW and ECW products. For me, despite the absence of big stars and the fact that most of the top Alliance guys were traitors from WWF, it still felt like WWF was seriously at threat, and therefore, from a marks perspective, the angle worked well.
Sure, that is not to say it was a great angle, or at least not a greatly executed angle, but I think there were more positives to it than you are giving it credit for.
Doesn't that sound like a huge mistake though? Marketing one storyline to a group of fans you already have? Both ECW and WCW had a good group of fans that never made the transition from being a Nitro viewer to being a Raw viewer. Nitro was getting some huge ratings in 1998 WHILE Raw was too. But, where are those fans now? It's my believe that one of the major reasons why the WWF never gained all of the WCW fans was because how they treated the WCW wrestlers as midcarders/jobbers during the Invasion. Two years later they finally give WCW wrestlers attention, however; they have Triple H squash everyone one of them, which once and for all "Proves" that the WWF was better than WCW.
Think about this for a minute. The WWF had all of the video footage of WCW. They could of very easily used 30 minutes of each show and showcase their new wrestlers and how they really were. That way people like you who only watched one show (Which I firmly believe you're in the minority) could learn about the new WWF Superstars.
Having a WWF vs WCW feud wasn't about impressing the WWF only fans. It was FINALLLLLYY putting on matches that fans of both companies have been cumming themselves over for years. But then again, I doubt anyone was cumming themself over the idea of The APA vs O'Haire/Palumbo. However, DDP vs The Rock, hell yes.
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If I am in the minority, then why would it make a difference what these 'WCW fans' think, because surely they watched both shows anyway? By your logic, WCW fans, ie the fans who only watched WCW, would also be a small minority of fans.
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It's a minority for sure, however; it's not that small. As a wrestling company, why wouldn't you try and bring in as many fans as possible? They were perfect, they were already fans, but they didn't have a company to follow.
I can give you a 3 letter example for why the WWF fucked up by not booking the WCW/ECW side better. N.W.O.
Think about their first match in WCW. Hall and Nash vs Lex Luger, Randy Savage and Sting. Three of WCW's best was getting their asses handed by them by 2 men! Even when Hogan was added to the mix, that was only 3 men. Yet, they dominated the roster. They would beat up large groups of wrestlers. It was during this time, Nash famously used Rey Mysterio Jr as a lawn dart and threw him head first into a trailer. That's how you create a buzz and bring in more fans. Eventually, more and more "WCW" wrestlers joined the group which lessened their impact. However, those first few months were huge. And they were huge because Eric Bischoff knew no matter how much people identified Hall and Nash as WWF Superstars, they were in his company and their success meant WCW's success. Five years later, Vince didn't share Eric's view on it.
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