Friday, March 29, 2024
EditorialIn Defense Of: WWF Invasion Angle

In Defense Of: WWF Invasion Angle

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In this edition of “In Defense Of” I will look at one of the most disappointing angles of all times, The failed WCW invasion angle. Now I will not defend the angle itself but I will defend the WWF on how the angle was handled. Yes the angle was done poorly and didn’t live up to what we as fans dreamed of since the 80’s, Actually it resembled more of a nightmare. What I will do is try to explain why the angle just couldn’t work. Hope you all enjoy.

The WWF had become the owner of World Championship Wrestling in 2001, The WWF wasn’t expecting to purchase WCW but it became available on really short notice for a bargain basement price and the WWF had no choice but to hurry up and buy their long time competition…… While it seemed like a no brainier that this would be a big money angle, politics, money and timing got in the way of what should of been every wrestling fans fantasy. Lets look at why this angle was dead in the water before it even started.

Contracts

This probably played the biggest part in killing the invasion angle. See how it works is all WCW contracts are paid buy Turner Sports and these are guaranteed contracts. So even if the talent isn’t being used they would still get paid.Contracts like Nash, Goldberg, Lex Luger, Rey Mysterio, Sting, Scott Hall, Ric Flair and most of the top stars had about 2 to 3 years left on them and the bigger stars were making upwards of 2.5 million to 3 million guaranteed. So a person like Goldberg was making close to 3 million dollars to sit and home, Why would he take a pay cut to work?.

Lets do a example here. If Nash is getting 2.5 million a year to stay at home for 2 years and he is willing to take a buy out on his contract to work for the WWF. Lets say Nash gets Turner to agree to pay him half and let him out of his contract, so Nash gets around 1.2 million and the WWF would have to make it worth Nash’s time and effort, so the WWF would have to at least pay Nash what he was making in his old contract which was 2.5 Million for 150 dates. If you look at it from a business perspective, Nash would basically be making a extra 1.2 million to work 150 dates and alot of of older WCW stars wouldn’t consider it worth the time or effort.

You also have the WWFs side. How would that effect locker morale if Goldberg, Nash, Hall and Luger were all getting several millions of dollars to work 100 days less than Rocks and Austins were working back then but getting almost the same paycheck. You also have the WWF loyalist that were huge stars like Angle, Kane and Undertaker (im not sure on Undertakers pay) not making that and working over 250 days a year.

Also was Goldberg,Nash, Hall and Luger really worth 10 million at the time for a invasion angle?. The WWF couldn’t touch Sting, because Sting flat out refused to work for the WWF. Hulk Hogan was in the middle of a law suit against Turner and Russo (which Hogan end up winning and getting somewhere around the 5 million dollar mark) so Hogan couldn’t really go to the WWF. Bret Hart was retired and refused to do business with the the WWF. Flair had a good contract with Turner and the WWF wasn’t really interested in bringing in Flair as a talent. A year later Flair was brought in as a authority figure……….. DDP and Booker T did take the buyout and end up working a WWF schedule, DDP said that he and Booker actually lost money on the deal. DDP and Booker both figured a invasion angle would be huge money but it didn’t end up that way, both men end up being used horribly.

So we really cant blame the WWF or the WCW wrestler who let their contracts run out. I mean honestly who would pass up being paid millions to sit at home?.

Television

Another huge deal breaker was a TV time slot. WWE (WWF at the time) had a huge contract with Spike TV, In the contract the WWF couldn’t shop a new TV show to another network. Spike had the rights to show all new WWF programming, That meant that the WWF had to sell their WCW show to Spike TV and Spike wasn’t interested in another wrestling program especially a non WWF wrestling program. Now WWF was in a bind, WWF could not legally put another wrestling program on another network and Spike didn’t want it on their network, so WWF explored its only option, turning Smackdown in to a WCW show. When WWF went to UPN with the idea, UPN nixed it. UPN told WWF that they signed a contract to have WWF programming and wasn’t interested in changing one of its highest rated shows in to WCW programming. UPN was also concerned that not having established WWF names like Steve Austin, The Undertaker, HHH, The Rock and others would make the ratings would plummet.

Conclusion

It was almost impossible for the WWF to get the talent it need for a proper Invasion angle and it was basically impossible for the WWF to get a time slot for The WCW product to establish the stars they did have.

With no stars and no TV time what was the WWF to do? How could they have made this work?. There wasn’t really a way, The WWF was doomed from the beginning and what we end up getting was a half ass WCW invasion Angle with WCW jobbers and ECW stars lead by WWF stars.

In closing, Yes I’am upset about the invasion angle but I understand the WWF’s hands were tied and there wasn’t much that can be done, so I cant really fault the WWF, as they tried. Althoughthe invasion storyline did fail miserbly we did get some amazing DVDs and merchandise from the WCW buyout and the WWE network wouldn’t exist if the WWF didn’t purchase World Championship Wrestling over 14 years ago in 2001.

I know some of you fans already knew all the specifics and hopefully some of you who didn’t know specifics have a whole new perspective on the WWF vs WCW invasion.