JackSlater
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2010
- 19,680
- 15,274
The Invasion angle essentially brought about the end of the best period in wrestling history. I'm not a huge Attitude Era mark or anything (I don't think the WWE was all that great from '98 to mid-'99), but that era was definitely top-notch throughout 2000 and the early part of 2001. Whereas earlier in the era, guys like Billy Gunn and Val Venis were pushed like they were big stars, by 2000 guys like Jericho, Angle, Guerrero, Benoit etc had joined and the roster was very deep and talented. The tag team division was great. The Rock was still around. Austin wasn't at his best but was still good. HHH was at his absolute peak.
Given Vince's ego and the fact he had bought WCW, an Invasion type angle was inevitable. I don't know if it could have worked any better than it did without the involvement of the likes of Hogan, Nash, Steiner, Goldberg etc. I feel that even if these stars had been brought in during the angle, the angle might still have been disappointing and the WWE might have buried WCW. Maybe it was simply inevitable that the WWE and pro wrestling in general would enter a decline after the sale of WCW. Competition can force a company to have to adapt and improve.
I am not a fan of the Ruthless Aggression era, the PG era or whatever the hell the latest era is in the WWE. I watched the WWE often from '08 to '12 or so but didn't enjoy it nearly as much then as I did early in the century.
I think that it still would have disappointed no matter who was there, mainly because Vince just wanted to rub his "victory" in everyone's faces rather than put out the best angle possible. The WCW faction could have at least been credible if Vince had been willing to pay. While the outcome of the angle was always going to be WWF wins, and rightly so, there were many fresh matchups available and lots of story potential with wrestlers with history in both companies. McMahons vs McMahons was far less interesting than anything that would have been expected leading in to the storyline.