WWF Circa 2001

What could have been. What should have been.

Leave it to the braintrust at World Wrestling Entertainment to screw up what was to have been the biggest storyline in the annals of wrestling (sports entertainment) history.

In March of 2001, Vince McMahon realized his dream of purchasing World Championship Wrestling. As soon as this took place, wrestling fans began salivating over dream matches. I mean, a year and a half ago, who wouldn't wanna see Stone Cold vs. Goldberg? The Rock vs. Booker T? Undertaker vs. Sting?

In what looked to be a great way to bring in the angle, Shane McMahon bought WCW from under his father's nose. It was revenge for Vince's abuse of his wife (and Shane's mother) Linda, who was comatose (a story for another day). And it appeared Shane was going to crush his father with WCW talent. Now, not even the egotistical McMahon family could screw THIS up, could they?

Guess again, kids.

The first problem was that it took TWO MONTHS for someone from WCW to invade. When it did happen, it was still good.

You had Lance Storm, Hugh Morrus, Chuck. Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, and Mike Awesome attacking WWF personel while Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T spearheaded this campaign of terror. It looked like a great scenario.

So far, so good.

And soon, we'd get to see Sting, Goldberg, The Outsiders, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, and all the other names from....wait, what's that?

I'm sorry, my assistant has informed me that the only former WCW World Champions even IN this invasion are Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T!

But hey, the WWF could still create stars out of the midcarders. It would be great to see Vince and company make good money off the guys that WCW misused. What a good insult that would be to Bischoff and the bunch, right?

Let's recap:

*Diamond Dallas Page is a stalker who gets THRASHED by Undertaker almost every single night of TV

*Booker T is a Rock-wannabe who's often ridiculed and called "Mr. T" by anyone not near the main event scene

*Lance Storm is depantsed by Edge, only to reveal he's a Power Ranger fan, judging by his Fruit of the Looms

*Shawn Stasiak runs into things and junk like that

*Chris Kanyon calls himself the "Alliance MVP", which must stand for "Make Vince Proud" by doing this crap

After a horrible match between Booker T and Buff Bagwell for the WCW Title (Not Buff's fault, his mom shouldn't have let him out past his 8 PM bedtime. What was she thinking?), certain measures absolutely had to be taken to save the angle.

E....C....W!

That's right. Paul Heyman took 10 men (WWF's Raven, Rhyno, Tazz, Justin Credible, Dudley Boyz, WCW's Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, and the debuting Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer) on July 9, 2001 and created an ECW faction to combat the "Big Two". And the crowd LOVED IT! They were HAPPY ECW was back!

Of course, Vince doesn't care what the fans think. The items on this page are proof of that. Before the night wasout, 2 things happened.

1) ECW aligned with WCW

2) Stephanie McMahon was revealed as the new owner of ECW while Heyman was a mere bystander.

Ever get the feeling Vince WANTS us to hate his company?

So then Stone Cold joined the "Alliance" to give them morestar power. All of the previously McMahon employed members enjoyed great success while the "newbies" got buried in a pile of total garbage. Simply because Vince "didn't wanna lose"

How can Vince lose NOW? ECW's dead, WCW's dead, he can't have his company look bad for the purpose of a great storyline? Well, of course, you'd have to know Vince.

The highlight of the Invasion was watching Rob Van Dam (a supposed heel for the Alliance) get the loudest cheers in the entire company, even when he was supposed to be doing heelish things. That musta had Vince scratching his head, eh?

After several eons of McMahon in-fighting and pointless matches and illogical scenarios (wouldn't a WWF ref try to job a WCW guy? Why would Vince fire him if he DID screw a WCW guy over?), it all ended on November 18th when WWF beat The Alliance in a 5 on 5 Survivor Series match for complete power. The Alliance Team consisted of:

*Stone Cold, a WWF guy before the Invasion. 0 for 1

*Kurt Angle, see Stone Cold. 0 for 2

*Shane McMahon, this is getting repitious. 0 for 3

*Booker T, whipping boy for the WWF. 1 for 4

*Rob Van Dam, WWF/WCW/ECW fan's favorite. 2 for 5

2 guys on the damn Alliance team were in the Alliance when they first came to the company? (Not counting Shane since he was in WWF beforehand) Almost a fitting ending for the shittiest angle ever, in my (not so) humble opinion.

When Combat Zone invades, I can't wait to see Justice Pain as a Rock wannabe.

Can you smell the "Pain"? I sure can

Credit to Justin Henry for this post