What If: Triple H Was Around During The Invasion?

They really needed credible threats in the Alliance, pushing more WWF talent into the Alliance did not help well as it still became WWF vs WWF. So they needed Hall, Nash, Hogan...


You could say Vince should have just dipped his hand in his pocket and brought in 2-3 main event WCW guys, but they would have needed to be transitioned for a couple of months first and Vince wanted to capitalise on the angle as soon as possible to get a return on his money. Feasibly, I dunno what was possible but he should have waited a little.

I think he should have tried for Flair and Jarrett. Jarrett could have patched things up for the good of the business, and was very adaptable in the ring - also having wrestled in the WWF 2 years before.

Flair was ready, just needed a pay out.

Hall, Nash and Hogan would have hogged the spotlight and commanded massive payouts for their contracts. They preferred sitting at home. However they would have given the angle more credibility.

Scott Steiner was clearly not ready for a transition to the WWF in 2002, so 2001 he'd have needed training up again.

Goldberg would have needed a massive payout, but unlike Hall, Nash and Hogan, would have been less combined. He may have been a bit of a liability and limited in the ring causing clever booking with the top WWF stars. I dunno how comfortable either party would have been.

Bagwell was a crybaby, but maybe they could have disciplined him and had him get back in shape.

Luger was maybe not a bankable star anymore. Not enough people cared about him and he didn't really have any value as a top guy.

Sting wanted nothing to do with the WWF.

Bischoff should have been involved, at least later on. Too many leaders (Shane, Steph, Paul) but remove Steph and put in Bischoff and it would have really worked as a group trying to take over the WWF.

It didn't need the nWo...it needed Goldberg, Steiner & Flair.

That's all.

The squashtastic nature of the angle would have been even worse with HHH at the wheel. He participated enough from the sidelines as it was.

Also? His return in 2002 was well received (as is all returning talent) but fans cooled on him quickly....and soured on him pretty fast because of the awful Jericho angle.

Air was sucked outta the room when Austin was eliminated from the RR...he was the crowd choice...not the returning "hero"....

Interesting question but nobody had a shot outside of HHH here. It was decided as far back as Oct 2000(amongst other things) that it would be the victory parade for the all conquering returning hero planned by Steph with her still new powers behind the scenes...except it wasn't as popular as folks thought. 

The vindictive burial of Jericho that followed didnt do H any favors either. Jericho was the first Undisputed champ ever & his booking against HHH was one of the worst abuses of backstage power ever committed to screen in Wrestling history...and my God that's saying something.

Jericho was a spectator in the Championship feud and because of this? fans didnt give one chocolate f*ck about their match @ WM18 or the fact that HHH won...look at the crowd reaction....folks will cite Rock vs Hogan as the reason for this but if HHH was as universally adored as they make out in his face role? It wouldn't have mattered. Its also well known that many experienced folks felt Rock vs Hogan should go on last...but Steph convinced daddy otherwise. The entire thing backfired.

After a 2 months HHHs time as Undisputed champ would be over and he was asking to go heel again. A role he EXCELLED in (few misteps aside)until he went face in 2006. 

If Triple H was around during the Invasion, he could have been in one of four roles. He could have been the leader of Extreme World Championship Wrestling. He could have been the leader of the Federation. He could have been the defector, who was actually Vince's spy. He could have been the underdog, the one who was suspected of turning, who eventually defected in the end anyway, and become the first Undisputed Champion.

I kind of agree with most of this, the fact is they needed the big stars to make it work; Hogan, Hall, Nash, Sting, Savage, Flair, Steiner, Sid, and Goldberg. You throw in guys like Kronik, Booker T, Buff, and DDP you have a solid roster. What they should have done was first bring in Flair as kind of the overall leader, do what they did with him and co-owner with Vince playing that he was the good guy owner to Vince's bad guy owner. Maybe have some footage of Hall, Nash and Steiner showing up at Shane's house saying that he (Shane) bought the company and now is doing nothing with it, that he is messing with their lively hood. Then start having guys show up threw the crowd (like WCW did with NWO), eventually make it look like Bischoff is running the whole organization and is doing this because Vince and the WWF ran them out of business, but after everyone has shown up reveal that Flair set it all up as co-owner. If they wanted to do something with the McMahon family, they can later reveal that Shane was behind it all because he was tired of living in his dads shadow and he wanted to make his mark. But all of this wouldn't have worked if the WWF guys weren't willing to put over the WCW guys first. For the invasion angle to work the WCW guys were going to have to look like a threat first so the WWF guys could come back and conquer them later. Maybe if they brought in the big names from WCW the WWF would have been more willing to put over them. 

You could also play with WWF guys turning and joining the WCW invaders, WWF already had Jericho and the Radicalz among others who had previously worked for WCW there so you could have some fun with that. You could maybe use these guys as the "inside guys" in the WWF that was helping out the WCW. 

A wildcard for this invasion would be Bret, he could be kind of a mastermind/consultant as well considering he worked for the WWF for 15 years and knows how Vince and company work. A face to face meeting in the ring with Bret and Vince would have been huge. But that would only work if Bret was willing to go back to the WWF at this time.

To me, this is an angle that could have lasted a few years instead of the 6 or 8 months it did. 

I would leave ECW out of the equation, they weren't ever really on the same level as WWF and WCW. They could maybe do something with them later on, after the invasion angle. 

I remember hearing rumors from wrestlers in the business at that time that Triple H didn't actually blow out his quad, and it was an angle to take him off TV during the Invasion angle.

Not saying that is accurate, I mean it is totally 100% possible Triple H blew out his quad in that tag match. But it is ironic he blew it out the same match he was losing the titles in. I mean the guy just lost the IC Title the night before, loses the Tag Titles that night and then blows his quad out.

And then we see the WCW guys start to invade Raw the week after that.... interesting timing.

Had Austin won the rumble, he would've taken the belt of Jericho instead and most likely in a more humiliating fashion. HHH and Jericho's feud wasn't perfect, but Austin could've made him look like trash. Beating him up in a supermarket, pouring beer over him, stuff like that would've been much worse than what he got from HHH.

I hate to say it, but Jericho was walking out of Mania without the belt, regardless of who won the Rumble.

HHH probably watched WCW in the late 90s and saw how popular Jericho was. Even in his early debut days Jericho was put over pretty well on WCW while Terra Ryzing in his WCW days was destined to be a guy who beats the Joey Maggs type of guys. Chris came in to WWF with a lot of fan fare and popularity even as a heel while Hunter struggled in his early WWF days on the level of fame and popularity with Sparky Plugg, Fatu, Duke Droese and Henry Godwinn. I'm sure he held a ton of bitterness towards anyone on the level of Chris back then. He is able to get the final victory over most guys from his era simply because of the power to bring them in for a Hall of Fame induction or a Raw reunion and see those guys kiss his butt on speeches and shoots but now Chris is helping a potential rival company build themselves as possible competition to WWE and that probably eats HHH up even more.