Twenty years of the WWE being the only big game in town...
 

...so reflect on these last two decades since WCW being absorbed and leaving the WWE with a monopoly on the industry. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? What has it meant in regards to Vince and his friend, Mortimer the Space Cowboy basically defining what wrestling is to the average person who doesn't know better? Discuss my fellow...uh, fellows.

I remember WCW being the only wrestling I could watch, as they were showing it on TNT in English and WWF was on DSF in German.

Still only feels like it was a few years ago, and not twenty!

Damn... Feels like a lifetime ago to me. I guess my excitement was at an all time high when I learned of the purchase. The possibility of different stories that could have taken place. Ultimatly what a let down, but still it could be fun to go back and watch some of those shows between May and Survivor Series.

I started watching WCW and was always a WCW guy right up until the end. I'd watch WWF too but WCW was always the priority. 11 year old me had no idea how bad 2000 WCW was, I loved it.

When I logged onto WCW.com one day and saw a WWF logo it shocked me, and seeing Vince open Nitro was surreal.

I hoped Nitro would continue under a different banner (as was the supposed plan with them getting SmackDown) but alas. Even 12 year old me could see how badly WCW got booked in the Invasion....and as someone that didn't understand the contract stuff I was annoyed that most of WCW's stars were nowhere to be found.

Took a long time to get to this point but I'm just glad there are a lot of other places for guys and gals to work now and make a viable living. Nobody's going to have WWE's market share of course but as long as other places do well enough to stay afloat and keep people employed it's a good thing for the industry.

I remember being in class when I heard about. Somebody had brought along an article about it as an example of some economic principle we were talking about. It was a complete shock. I knew WCW was sucking eight forms of shit at the time and I had stopped watching it full time in late 2000 but I had no idea the shape it was in. There are too many what ifs to ponder over but really, overall, it was a shitty thing that ultimately fucked over the scene in this country and there's no going back.

WCW largely did it to themselves. I’ve been hungry for an alternative for so long. I hope natural changes within the WWE — Vince getting tired, etc. — leads to reformation. Edge, Bryan and Heyman seem to be largely in control of their main event story. It’s a start.

Short of that, the only hope people really have for good modern wrestling is another billionaire getting involved. Maybe Sinclair could break bank? I don’t see that happening though.

One of my favorite stories from the takeover. I remember Steve Corino (who had signed with WCW but never debuted) mentioning on a podcast that he didn’t know if his contract was absorbed by WWF or if AOL kept it, but all he knew was due a big bonus a certain number of days, if they didn’t opt out of the contract by that day the money was guaranteed. He didn’t want to draw attention to it though, so all he could do was helplessly sit at home and hope JR or whoever didn’t have enough time to sort through all the talent contracts before the day arrived.

The Invasion was literally the biggest thing to ever happen to professional wrestling and man was it not good. It got kneecapped early though with Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Savage, Flair, and Steiner all not being apart of it. Really left a lack of star quality to build off of. It was pretty much just Booker T and DDP. Booker got some decent shine and DDP... yeah.

Also shoutout to Mike Awesome’s cup of coffee. What a waste.

Yeah they certainly didn't do themselves any favors. The best were the guys who came over like RIGHT before.

I remember Haku sitting with the A.P.A. talking about "they aren't coming in our house" like he wasn't Meng 2 months earlier :lol:

After Booker T, was the most successful WCW Invasion wrestler the Hurricane? Oh my god.

I guess Chavo probably. I didn’t even remember him in the Invasion.

Either him or Kidman.

If it wasn't for him being stuck in the terrible wife stalker feud with Taker, DDP could have been right up there with Booker T as a successful WCW guy in WWE.

Was thinking who was in the Alliance that was popular or a big name guy and kept thinking of ECW guys instead like RVD and Raven.

Most successful was probably Charles Robinson. :lol:

Mike Awesome was so good. They really did poorly with him in WWE. In WCW at least he was used even if it was pretty stupid. He was definitely better as a one dimensional main event wrecking machine in ECW.

Mike Awesome = The Miz.




C'monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Mike Awesome worked in ECW because he was bigger than everyone else.

That wasn't the case in WWF/WCW. He's the same size as Test.

Wasn't it him and Hugh Morrus talking about switching sides and trying to join the WWE right before the Winner Take All Survivor Series match?

At the very least I can remember him in WCW. I remember his less than diplomatic comments about the WWE backstage shortly after he had been released.

They should have gone ahead with WCW as it's own separate brand until they got all the guys waiting out their contracts. THEN do the WWF vs WCW angle.

Throw former WCW guys like Benoit, Jericho, and Eddie to pad out the star power.

And then do an ECW invasion to give them a hot angle right out of the gate.

And then?

The invasion was so bad. It effectively killed the business to where it’s still never recovered.:shifty:

If the WWE had played it smart, they would have committed to still having two separate brands: WWE Raw and WWE Smackdown. Heyman and Shane managing one brand while Stephanie and Bischoff managing the other. No lottery drafts every 18 months + no people “switching over” at random. The GM and owner’s of each show would be allowed to make trades with one nasturtium, but that’s it. Survivor Series = best 5 from each brand going up against one another in the main-event. The WWE should have committed to bringing in ALL guys from WCW and ECW when they bought out WCW, doing the invasion angle as they done, but with everyone involved, and then create two separate brands in RAW and Smackdown in which both rosters would be filled with stars from WWE and former WCW and ECW wrestlers.