The InVasion

Scott, love the blog and your work.  The Rocks past run has re-engaged my interest in WWE after being driven away due to the atrocity that was the Invasion period.   I’m sure you’ve answered this somewhere, but in your opinion why did the Invasion angle blow so much?  Was it because Vince didn’t pay out for the big guns?  Was it the wretched involvement of the McMahons on every second of tv, or just terrible overall booking?  This should have been a great time to be a fan but ended driving me completely away for a decade.  Most importantly, what do you think would have been the most effective way to play this out?  Thanks MH

The main reason was because Vince didn’t want to treat WCW as an equal to the WWF, even though he owned both promotions.  The money in the angle was simple:  WCW are the invaders and that’s the last bit of kayfabe that fans would wholeheartedly accept.  So they immediately burned through that entire angle, plus the ECW involvement, in one show and had nowhere else to go with it.  As well, they were doing a half-assed attempt to keep WCW running as a second touring company (an idea which eventually became the RAW/Smackdown brand split) and just couldn’t decide what they actually wanted to do with the whole thing.  So yeah, TERRIBLE booking plus Vince’s ridiculous need to “humble” people who dared work for his competition equaled the most money left on the table in wrestling history.  And the thing is that they didn’t even NEED the big guns.  The novelty of seeing DDP and Booker T would have been enough to make them into featured attractions, but again they didn’t fit with Vince’s mentality and so WWF guys had to become fake WCW invaders instead.  It was really cutting off your nose to spite your face.