Highlights
- The WCW Invasion storyline lacked major stars like nWo, Sting, and Goldberg.
- The Alliance was never seen as a real threat to WWE, turning it into a McMahon family feud.
- WWE ’12 video game portrayed a better WWE vs. WCW storyline than what actually happened.
In the aftermath of WWE’s buy out of WCW and the acquisition of their talent, the company embarked on one of their most ambitious storylines. Known as the Invasion, it featured talent from the closed company “invading” WWE and attempting to take over the promotion. On paper, it seemed like it had all the potential to be the greatest storyline in company history. In reality, it was one of the biggest failures in company history. It lacked starpower, which resulted in the need to bring in former ECW talent signed to WWE to form The Alliance. It ultimately ended up turning into another McMahon family feud, which had already been seen before. It wasn’t until 2011 that fans finally got a good WCW invasion storyline, but not in the way you might think..
What Went Wrong With The Invasion Angle?
WWE Failed In Executing This Dream Storyline With WCW
- The Alliance lacked big time WCW stars like the nWo, Sting, and Goldberg
- The Alliance was never presented as a major threat
- The Invasion became a story about the McMahons instead of WWE vs WCW
There were a number of problems with the 2001 Invasion storyline. For one, the WCW talent that was acquired by WWE, except for names like Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, was mostly midcard talents that fans were not super familiar with. The big names of WCW, such as Scott Steiner, Bill Goldberg, Sting, and the nWo, were not signed because of their Time Warner contracts. With so few high profile names, WWE turned to the former ECW talent on their roster aligning with the former WCW talent in order to form a larger group known as The Alliance. Even with that, they still lacked major names.
8 Stories About The Invasion Storyline We Can’t Believe
The Invasion storyline was probably one of WWE’s biggest duds, and here are a few backstage stories about it we can’t believe.
WWE ultimately turned to their own big stars, such as Kurt Angle and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, becoming members of The Alliance. Even if you look at the Survivor Series 2001 elimination tag team match between Team WWE and The Alliance, the match is mostly WWE guys except for Rob Van Dam and Booker T. The storyline was never meant to see WCW as the major threat, instead it was just another way to carry on the feud between the McMahons. It had the potential to be a great storyline, but WWE severely botched it.
Eric Bichoff spoke on his podcast about why the Invasion failed. He said:
“
Ric Flair was much more closely associated with WCW than with WWE. Even though Ric spent some time in WWE, he’s a WCW guy. He’s an NWA guy. He’s that guy. [Lex] Luger, the Steiner Brothers, so many, you can just run down the top 15 people at the top of the roster.
“All of those people represented the WCW brand, myself included to a lesser extent. They didn’t have any of those people. So you’ve got the brand, and if there was a critical flaw it would be assuming that the audience believed just because you had the three letters, WCW, that the audience would follow
.” (
h/t 411Mania
)
WWE ’12 Got The WCW Invasion Right
The WWE ’12 Video Game Made WCW Look Good
- Released in 2011
- Developed by Yuke’s and published by THQ
- Available on Wii, PlayStation 3, and XBOX 360
The WWE and WCW rivalry never had a shortage of interest to it. Fans wanted to see what a feud between the two companies could have been. In 2011, the new video game, WWE’ 12, was released. In a very pleasant surprise, the video game tackled a WWE vs WCW storyline and accomplished it far better than what the WWE had done 10 years prior.
Randy Savage’s Definitive 10 Best WCW Matches, Ranked
Despite being older in age, Macho Man was still able to put on some amazing matches during his time in WCW.
One of the main storylines in the game featured players wrestling as Jacob Cass, who was created for the game. He joins RAW, which was managed by Kevin Nash. In the game, Nash hosts a Clash of the Champions event, as a means to celebrate WCW. In reality, he was plotting to bring back WCW. He formed a team consisting of former WCW stars, including Rey Mysterio, The Big Show, Road Warrior Animal, Vader, Arn Anderson, and Booker T. Cody Rhodes was recruited as well to Team WCW, which made sense due to Dusty Rhodes’ history in WCW. After weeks of attacks and wins for WCW, it led to a WrestleMania match between Nash and Mysterio taking on Triple H and Cass, representing WWE. Nash and Mysterio won, which led to WCW Nitro being brought back. This eventually led to a proper WWE vs WCW match at Starrcade, where Cass overcame the odds and beat Nash in the final part of a multi-person elimination Hell in a Cell match.
WWE ’12 Did The WCW Invasion Better Than WWE Did
WWE ’12 Made WCW A Threat To WWE
10 Past Video Game Features We Want Back In WWE Games
While fans are enjoying the latest entry in the WWE 2K series, some gamers still miss these features from previous games!
That WWE’12 game mode actually allowed WCW to look like a legitimate threat to WWE. It was calculated and made far more sense. The defectors to WCW, like Rey Mysterio and The Big Show, actually had history with the promotion. It had starpower from WCW, instead of being made up of midcarders casual fans didn’t know. It allowed for some true competition between WWE and WCW, instead of it being another storyline for the McMahons. It accomplished in a game what WWE could not in real life.
