Random Thoughts III.

[King Pitcos]

9 hours ago, Pinc said:

Aye. But I suppose doing it from the start would save budget on your Mike Awesomes and Tommy Dreamers who were non-entities in the Invasion.

If Dreamer never got the contract though, he’d have murdered Heyman and himself, and the whole invasion would’ve been dropped like the Vince limo explosion.

[Sheffbag]

13 hours ago, Pinc said:

Aye. But I suppose doing it from the start would save budget on your Mike Awesomes and Tommy Dreamers who were non-entities in the Invasion.

Mike Awesome was the first WCW guy to win a belt though so quite important. 

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Yeah, you're right, should have saved the budget.

[Chris B]

WCW didn't have a star during the invasion, and they wasted their biggest one on the stalker stuff. When it centred around Austin and Vince again, it was dead in the water. 

Instead of the Austin double-turn, they could have held off on either DDP or Booker, and had one of them be the difference-maker in the main event as their debut with a run-in.

[garynysmon]

I know they couldn't help themselves with shit like this at the time, and was wholly predictable, but I always thought it was a mistake to frame the invasion from wholly within the McMahon prism.

Let's be honest, did anyone really want Stephanie to lead ECW? Is there a company less suited for her to buy than ECW? Shane leading WCW was understandable, but throwing her into the mix just turned it into a regular WWF storyline of the time.

It wasn't ideal but I did think that DDP and Booker T etc were just about big enough names to get away with, had they booked them properly. The proper stars weren't going to walk away from guaranteed money for doing nothing, who sane actually would? (Hi Page). Booked right (and that's quite an ask) they could have held off until more WCW stars turned up and spiced things up.

But moving over Austin (of all people!) to WCW did more to dilute than promote the brand, and just turned it into a glorified stable war.

Ric Flair turned up the night after the Survivor Series ffs, they obviously had him tied up at least weeks prior to that. Bischoff had fuck all to do and would probably have come in sooner if asked etc.

I can't help but think that ego's got in the way here and they couldn't wait to crown the WWF champions of the promotions wars before going back to business as usual. Serious money was left on the table and it was all downhill from here, business wise

Edited May 4, 2020 by garynysmon

[The Cutting Edge]

Was it ever mentioned or rumoured who Batista was gonna face at Wrestlemania 22 before he got injured?

In January he was World Champion on Smackdown til he tore his tricep, looking at how it played out at Mania I would guess Randy Orton would've been the plan but can't remember hearing about what was planned.

[UK Kat Von D]

1 hour ago, garynysmon said:

Let's be honest, did anyone really want Stephanie to lead ECW? Is there a company less suited for her to buy than ECW? Shane leading WCW was understandable, but throwing her into the mix just turned it into a regular WWF storyline of the time.

Steph made even less sense since Heyman was actually there. Shane made sense but they should have gone with a mystery financial backer to later be revealed as Flair. Could have been a good higher power angle but with an actual pay off.

[Pogue]

1 hour ago, The Cutting Edge said:

Was it ever mentioned or rumoured who Batista was gonna face at Wrestlemania 22 before he got injured?

In January he was World Champion on Smackdown til he tore his tricep, looking at how it played out at Mania I would guess Randy Orton would've been the plan but can't remember hearing about what was planned.

Yeah only thing I've ever read was him vs Orton, I suppose they could've heated Orton up with a Rumble win coming off his Undertaker feud but still would've been lacklustre 

Cena/HHH would've been main event over anything on SmackDown at that time anyway so don't suppose it mattered how much Orton would've been considered a genuine threat

[Your Fight Site]

25 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Steph made even less sense since Heyman was actually there. Shane made sense but they should have gone with a mystery financial backer to later be revealed as Flair. Could have been a good higher power angle but with an actual pay off.

I don’t think I’ve watched any Invasion-era WWF since it was originally broadcast, but did Steph not “buy” ECW when it went bankrupt, to join forces with Shane and stick it to their dad? That kinda makes sense.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Your Fight Site

[UK Kat Von D]

22 minutes ago, Your Fight Site said:

I don’t think I’ve watched any Invasion-era WWF since it was originally broadcast, but did Steph not “buy” ECW when it went bankrupt, to join forces with Shane and stick it to their dad? That kinda makes sense.

Here Shane introduces Steph as the owner of ECW, while Heyman is stood next to him acting like it’s the best thing ever. JR fucks the reveal a bit by announcing her as the owner of the wrong promotion, but we are used to that

[Chris B]

Thinking a bit more about how the end of the Invasion PPV really fucked it all up, even if it was fun at the time.

What was really working up until that point was the sense of 'what's going to happen next? Who's going to turn up?'. The way the PPV had been built and set up, it desperately needed a revelation at the end of it to set up what was going to happen next. If they'd held off on Booker or DDP, and had them turn up, it would have at least felt like 'oh shit, there are more guys! This is just getting started! Who's going to turn up next?'. Or if they'd got over themselves and got a Nash or Hall, a Bischoff or Flair. ANY of those four turning up would have been amazing, but failing that, holding off on someone they already had would have helped keep that momentum going.

Instead, by turning Austin (who had only turned face again in order to do this) gave a different message - 'This is your lot'. We weren't getting any of the other names, we weren't anticipating any other players joining the game. We had everyone, and from here on, we were just playing it out.

They played the hand they were dealt on the night - they'd debuted everyone they could, and they didn't have a better option than what they did that night. But it also meant that the next act of the story was set out, and they'd made clear there were no surprises coming.

[CavemanLynn]

Hindsight's 20/20, of course, but looking back, they booked themselves into a corner by immediately going into an Invasion us-vs-them angle, which as someone posted earlier, meant the entire non-WWF/E had to be de facto heels, regardless of fan feeling or character, e.g. (because of course) DDP.

It might've been better to acknowledge the buy-out, but then having WCW stars turn up just like any other signing, as individual entities, letting them go heel or face as they were. If you're paying the guys anyway, it makes sense to try to get the most out of the names, so let some come in as new merch machines. After either testing the waters or tweaking the angles over a couple of months, commit to a version of the NWO invasion, where the ex-WCWers band together. Maybe in the Rumble, do a version of Punk's Nexus run, where some of the higher-ranking WCWers are being protected by the lowers, who gang up and sling out any WWF entrants. This puts some big names in the top matches for Wrestlemania, which then becomes your WWF vs WCW PPV, with all the spectacle that would come with. I'm pretty sure a Mania payday would have enticed even the stalwarts to come back from sitting out their contracts.

[King Pitcos]

2 hours ago, Chris B said:

Or if they'd got over themselves and got a Nash or Hall, a Bischoff or Flair.

 

On 5/3/2020 at 1:55 PM, Vamp said:

There is nothing more boring than people fantasy booking the invasion by bringing in guys who were sitting out their contracts. There seems to be this base assumption that all WWE had to do was offer the same amount of money. If I'm being paid a fuck load to sit at home you're going to have to pay me a double fuck load for me to even consider going to work. If I'm in the WWE and I've helped you win the "war" and you pay a double fuck load to bring a WCW guy in then I want a triple fuck load. 

It all spirals out of control. That's not even considering house show dates and creative control. 

 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Could have easily got Flair out of his deal. Just say "give up all your money and we'll let you be on TV again, old man" and he'd have ran in there like Barrymore in the Big Brother house.

[Chris B]

19 minutes ago, King Pitcos said:

Quoting vamp

 

I mean there was a lot more to that sentence, that was specifically talking about doing it with the people they had rather than boringly fantasy-booking with the people they didn't have, but sure. You do you.

[King Pitcos]

2 minutes ago, Chris B said:

I mean there was a lot more to that sentence, that was specifically talking about doing it with the people they had rather than boringly fantasy-booking with the people they didn't have, but sure. You do you.

I quoted the whole sentence. But when the other sentences around it are about not having Booker T or DDP in the invading team at the PPV, I didn't think they were worth quoting, because then it leads to the boring question of who you replace them with, and then to defend your point you have to pretend there were other options there.