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Post by Edge618 on Oct 20, 2016 1:11:29 GMT -5
I think those mentioning the Invasion angle are correct, but Vince's hands were tied on that one. The only way that story plays out right is if the big names are there from the start. And too many of them could sit for a couple years getting paid from AOL to do nothing. If Vince waited until then to start it, he'd be sitting that long on the contracts of the other talent, and the public loses interest anyways. Yeah, I'm not sure what people are suggesting when they talk about the invasion story being a missed opportunity, but if they mean signing Goldberg/Sting/Outsiders etc -- that wasn't a viable opportunity in the first place because it wasn't a contractual possibility, so it's a pointless suggestion. Same for waiting until all those guys became available to do it. Holding off the invasion until 02/03 would've been a long time without WCW and ECW in the industry, and a long time where those guys wouldn't have had steady jobs in wrestling. If they just mean stuff like Booker and DDP being booked stronger, I kinda get it. But at the same time, those guys came from a failed promotion and they weren't even the biggest names from it. So you can see why the WWF guys would've wanted to look superior. That big influx of new talent onto one roster meant your spot was more at risk than ever. If they mean things like Rock joining the Alliance instead of Stone Cold -- I mean, it may have worked better, but ultimately I don't see it being a huge difference. The Invasion was a huge missed oppurtunity. Vince could of bought all the big time wrestlers contracts out, and offered new contracts. What he wanted, was for them to ditch their guaranteed contracts for new WWE contracts, which from a wrestlers stand point, is quite stupid. None of those guys signed because Vince had to big of an ego to buy them out, which probably wouldve made him more money than he'd of had to spend to get them.
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That 80s Guy
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Post by That 80s Guy on Oct 20, 2016 12:34:18 GMT -5
-- The InVasion angle, was the biggest missed opportunity in World Wrestling Fedentertainment history.
Nothing can possibly beat the acquisition of 1 company, and seizing the assets of another.
My personal analogy of what happened: Vince had mud covered gold in his hands, but because it was mud covered, he opted to toss the gold away.
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Post by kingnothing ~ Hardwired... on Oct 20, 2016 14:36:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm not sure what people are suggesting when they talk about the invasion story being a missed opportunity, but if they mean signing Goldberg/Sting/Outsiders etc -- that wasn't a viable opportunity in the first place because it wasn't a contractual possibility, so it's a pointless suggestion. Same for waiting until all those guys became available to do it. Holding off the invasion until 02/03 would've been a long time without WCW and ECW in the industry, and a long time where those guys wouldn't have had steady jobs in wrestling. If they just mean stuff like Booker and DDP being booked stronger, I kinda get it. But at the same time, those guys came from a failed promotion and they weren't even the biggest names from it. So you can see why the WWF guys would've wanted to look superior. That big influx of new talent onto one roster meant your spot was more at risk than ever. If they mean things like Rock joining the Alliance instead of Stone Cold -- I mean, it may have worked better, but ultimately I don't see it being a huge difference. The Invasion was a huge missed oppurtunity. Vince could of bought all the big time wrestlers contracts out, and offered new contracts. What he wanted, was for them to ditch their guaranteed contracts for new WWE contracts, which from a wrestlers stand point, is quite stupid. None of those guys signed because Vince had to big of an ego to buy them out, which probably wouldve made him more money than he'd of had to spend to get them. Okay, clearly I need some more explanation from some of you to understand this. Here is what I know: Vince bought WCW for around 2 million. The contracts of Sting, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Luger and maybe Rey would've cost Vince over 10 MILLION. That's court documents from the Sonny Onoo lawsuit info right there. So he'd have to spend that just to get access to these guys. (That doesn't include Hogan by the way) Once he buys those contracts, he then has to negotiate new contracts and begin paying them MORE money. Do you believe Goldberg is going to come in and accept anything less than Austin money? And by the way, most of those at the top 'may' have had the option to simply refuse negotiations, take a couple year vacation and enjoy that guaranteed money. So please, explain to me how refusing to drop that kind of money is an ego thing and a missed opportunity.
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Post by A-Rob on Oct 20, 2016 14:42:39 GMT -5
There's sadly to many to name.
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 22:41:57 GMT -5
a few come to mind:
-Not letting The Rock win at WM2000...it couldve been a classic attitude era moment and instead turned into a super forgettable PPV -Everything about the Invasion. Chris Jericho should have been the focal point/main guy of WCW. Big Show should have been on WCW. They should have just delayed the storyline until they could bring in Flair, the nWo, Bischoff, etc. Eddie and Benoit would have been back. HHH would have been back. It would have become the greatest era and had some of the best PPV's in the history of wrestling if they had just been patient. Plus by mid 2002 HBK and Mysterio would have been back. Wrestling could have gotten at least another 1-2 years of being mainstream. -Not turning John Cena heel -Everything involving the Nexus and not making Barrett the champion -Completely forgetting that Miz was a world champion -Not making CM Punk sit out a little longer in 2011
I could go on for days but a lot of very poor booking decisions were made between 2002 and 2013 that made top talent leave.
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 22:48:27 GMT -5
I think those mentioning the Invasion angle are correct, but Vince's hands were tied on that one. The only way that story plays out right is if the big names are there from the start. And too many of them could sit for a couple years getting paid from AOL to do nothing. If Vince waited until then to start it, he'd be sitting that long on the contracts of the other talent, and the public loses interest anyways. It was just approached the wrong way. They should have just let the jobbers they had debut and become part of WWE. WWE was in need of some fresh talent with HHH, The Rock, and Benoit all injured. Booker T, DDP, and RVD would have done a great job as new guys who defected. We were in need of a few new tag teams also. Let Shane walk around trying to recruit guys to join WCW. Then by novemeber/december all of a sudden an uprising starts when it's revealed that Ric Flair gave Shane and Stephanie the money to buy WCW. Eventually the nWo debuts and lays out Austin/HHH/Angle/The Rock. Big Show, Booker T, Jericho, Benoit, and Eddie all defect. Suddenly you've got a roster of WCW guys that are actually a threat to WWF. Wrestlemania 18 then becomes winner take all match.
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 22:57:46 GMT -5
It isn't well known, or true. For fantasy booking, it's nice, but it wasn't even remotely feasible. It is true. AOL paid the deals but there were options. Booker and DDP took about half of what they were guaranteed so that they were free to go to WWE immediately. WWE could've bought out any deal they wanted, as AOL would've been happy to not have to pay out those huge guaranteed deals. It's a little more complicated than this, I actually did a lot of research on this for a law school project. If you every get the chance you should do some research on how WWF eventually bought WCW - it's pretty intriguing. It almost didn't happen and originally WWF was a "silent" buyer in order to do diligence on the deal. The Main WCW guy's contracts were owned by AOL Time Warner and not WCW. From my understanding is that most of these guys had multimillion dollar deals that WWE could not afford (or WWE has not given the option to assume these contracts), whereas the other guys (the Hugh Morris and Chuck Palumbo's of the world) contracts were through WCW and were part of the purchase. From what I remember, guys like Booker T went to WWE immediately because they knew that if they waited it out they were going to get low balled and have virtually no spot on the card when they were a free agent because the bigger players (Hogan, Hall, Flair, Nash, Sting, etc.) would be free at that time.
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 23:00:21 GMT -5
I think those mentioning the Invasion angle are correct, but Vince's hands were tied on that one. The only way that story plays out right is if the big names are there from the start. And too many of them could sit for a couple years getting paid from AOL to do nothing. If Vince waited until then to start it, he'd be sitting that long on the contracts of the other talent, and the public loses interest anyways. Vince should have waited then a year or two to run it. Yes bring in the talent he had acquired right away but don't treat it as an Invasion. Or Vince had just come off his most profitable year yet still as owner of the WWF (2000). Yes it would have been expensive but he could have bought out the contracts of Goldberg, Steiner, and Sting which would have been more than enough to keep the storyline going until early 2002 when he could bring in the nWo. The money he could have made would have easily offset the cost of buying out their Turner contracts. I did a project on this, and believe it or not...while the WWE was making a lot of money....it wasn't the kind of money that they could afford to go out and invest $10-15MM in a handful of wrestlers. I wanna say their revenue was somewhere around $54MM in 1999 or 2000 with like 1/3 to 1/2 of that being profit.
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REAL REVY
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Post by REAL REVY on Oct 20, 2016 23:03:20 GMT -5
The limo explosion what happened to Vince's thigs
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 23:10:51 GMT -5
*Not having Orton v. Edge at an anemic WrestleMania 23 *The total mishandling of Ryback *WWE royally ing up the Invasion angle. They did it way too soon. Should have slowly brought guys in and when the big guns like Hall/Hogan/Nash/Goldberg/Sting were ready, they could have turned. Like sleeper cells within WWE. This guy's got it down. They had such ants in their pants. The one rule for WWF during the entire invasion was that they wanted to make the WWF guys look strong and to promote top mid card guys (Jericho, Kane, Edge, RVD, Hardys, etc.). All they needed to do was literally wait 4-5 months...not years like everyones suggesting...and the stage would have been set. Having Austin turn heels and join the organization that tried to ruin his career made literally 0 sense. The entire storyline was just Stone Cold Steve Austin and a bunch of lackeys vs. the WWF. The towards the end when you had all these sub feuds within WWF (Rock vs. Jericho, Edge vs. Christian, Hardy vs. Hardy)...it just created this mass chaos with way too much going on. I've always hated that a large part of the Invasion storyline was reliant on ECW guys who had been in the WWF for a while at that point and had never even been in WCW (Rhyno, Dudleys, Tazz, RVD, Dreamer).
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Post by The-Rock on Oct 20, 2016 23:13:52 GMT -5
Austin joining the alliance was stupid. If they could have put that off and saved his heel turn for him being the surprise new leader of the NWO after Hogan was kicked out. That could have been huge. Keep Austin completely away from the NWO from their debut until the reveal, have him go over Angle at WM X8 for revenge for Angle eliminating him the from the rumble. Hall could have went over Kane with help from Nash to give the group a win and give more reason for them to be upset with Hogan for his loss. Naaaa Austin and the nWo doesn't mesh at all. Wrestlemania 18 should have featured WCW v. WWF dream matches with the team that won at the end of the night gaining control of the company
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hbkowns
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Post by hbkowns on Oct 20, 2016 23:54:42 GMT -5
Not going all the way with Summer of Punk.
Not having Dean Ambrose ever get his comeuppance in his feud with Rollins in 2014.
Not having Austin vs Hogan when they were both signed at the same time
Not having Austin vs Goldberg when they were both signed at the same time
Invasion angle could have been a lot better if it was started a bit later.
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Post by kingnothing ~ Hardwired... on Oct 21, 2016 4:53:26 GMT -5
*Not having Orton v. Edge at an anemic WrestleMania 23 *The total mishandling of Ryback *WWE royally ing up the Invasion angle. They did it way too soon. Should have slowly brought guys in and when the big guns like Hall/Hogan/Nash/Goldberg/Sting were ready, they could have turned. Like sleeper cells within WWE. This guy's got it down. They had such ants in their pants. The one rule for WWF during the entire invasion was that they wanted to make the WWF guys look strong and to promote top mid card guys (Jericho, Kane, Edge, RVD, Hardys, etc.). All they needed to do was literally wait 4-5 months...not years like everyones suggesting...and the stage would have been set. Having Austin turn heels and join the organization that tried to ruin his career made literally 0 sense. The entire storyline was just Stone Cold Steve Austin and a bunch of lackeys vs. the WWF. The towards the end when you had all these sub feuds within WWF (Rock vs. Jericho, Edge vs. Christian, Hardy vs. Hardy)...it just created this mass chaos with way too much going on. I've always hated that a large part of the Invasion storyline was reliant on ECW guys who had been in the WWF for a while at that point and had never even been in WCW (Rhyno, Dudleys, Tazz, RVD, Dreamer). Simply put; See Bret Hart WCW circa 1997. They waited months too. Could he compete? Nope. Could he speak? Yup! Put a live mic on him (in the back if needed to avoid a lawsuit) and turn him loose on Nitro. Promote that to the hills at the top of the hour so Vince has little time to make lawyer calls, and watch the ratings go. Now, once they did bring him in, they fumbled everything, but my point is, strike while the fire is hot. Even several months at this point was costing Vince plenty after buying the contracts he chose to.
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Post by cordless2016 on Oct 21, 2016 9:39:21 GMT -5
Vince should have waited then a year or two to run it. Yes bring in the talent he had acquired right away but don't treat it as an Invasion. Or Vince had just come off his most profitable year yet still as owner of the WWF (2000). Yes it would have been expensive but he could have bought out the contracts of Goldberg, Steiner, and Sting which would have been more than enough to keep the storyline going until early 2002 when he could bring in the nWo. The money he could have made would have easily offset the cost of buying out their Turner contracts. I did a project on this, and believe it or not...while the WWE was making a lot of money....it wasn't the kind of money that they could afford to go out and invest $10-15MM in a handful of wrestlers. I wanna say their revenue was somewhere around $54MM in 1999 or 2000 with like 1/3 to 1/2 of that being profit. Thanks for the info. I know the big players were under Tuner contracts, and not WCW contracts, but even then had they simply bought out let's say Goldberg's contract, and treated Booker and DDP as equals to the top WWF guys, I believe it would have been enough to keep things going until the nWo and Flair could be brought in in early 2002. Sting has even commented that he had conversations with Vince after the WCW purchase of coming in but he backed out after seeing how guys like Booker were mistreated. Who knows how things would have turned out had the guys Vince got were treated better. Sting may have debuted by SummerSlam and we could have been looking at a much different 2001-2003. If booked right, I feel that a team of Goldberg or Sting, Booker, DDP, RVD, and a newly turned heel Jericho and Big Show would have been enough to make the feud successful and keep fans interested until other could be brought in.
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Post by BoJack Hogan on Oct 21, 2016 11:13:29 GMT -5
The one that stings the most, Cody Rhodes. They missed the opportunity with him not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR TIMES!!!! The crowd spoke, and the writers didn't listen. I just hope that his indie tour shows them what they missed and in a few years he can return and be the superstar he was always meant to be.
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JWC
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JWC'2010-Forever'
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Post by JWC on Oct 21, 2016 14:47:42 GMT -5
Undertaker vs Sting in their prime. Cm Punk vs Undertaker in the main event of Mania. Cm Punk vs Steve Austin. John Cena vs Hulk Hogan.
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Post by Dan on Oct 21, 2016 18:46:13 GMT -5
Hulk Hogan vs Stone Cold will always be up there. If they couldn't put there differences aside for Wrestlemania 18, then it definitely should have happened at Wrestlemania XIX.
Kurt Angle had to be in the Main Event at Wrestlemania 18 too IMO, whether it was Kurt Angle vs Triple H, or Kurt Angle vs Chris Jericho vs Triple H. The same thing goes for CM Punk at Wrestlemania 29, it should have been a Triple threat, and you could argue that 27 should have been CM Punk vs John Cena for the Title. They also should have tied Sting up years prior to when they finally did. It ended up too little too late. AJ styles should also have been signed around 2006.
Others that come to mind;
Wrestlemania 18, Goldberg vs Stone Cold Wrestlemania 32; Stone Cold vs Brock Lesnar, Stone Cold vs John Cena Wretlemania 30, Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan Wrestlemania XX, The Rock vs Shawn Michaels, The Rock vs Randy Orton Wrestlemania XIX, Booker T not winning the World Heavyweight Championship
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Post by The Brain on Oct 21, 2016 21:46:49 GMT -5
Another one that comes to mind is not giving the Big Boss Man the IC Title at WM 7. He was way over as a babyface in 90/91 and above all else it would of been the perfect end (no pun intended)to the whole feud he had with the Heenan family.
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Post by hCo.Bro™ [brandon_lee] on Oct 22, 2016 0:15:26 GMT -5
One not mentioned yet... ...but hey, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. RIP
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| NLS™ |
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Post by | NLS™ | on Oct 22, 2016 1:27:14 GMT -5
WCW Invasion. /thread
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