WCW Wrestlers whos contracts were purchased by WWE

That list is a great example of why the Invasion angle failed. DDP and Booker T were the biggest names while Goldberg, Nash and Steiner were brought in later for HHH to feud with and Sting has never been signed.

Your list looks complete from what I remember. Great post.

DDP was buried in European title feuds and Booker T hadnt been main eventing for that long when WCW got sold. I think Sting would have been essential, as he was allways the face of WCW going from late 80's up until its closure. Up until mid 90's it was hard to see anything WCW over in the UK, but I remember seeing things like WCW action figures and WCW trading cards and anuals and the face that was allways on them was Sting, even though at that time I only watched WWF in the early 90's I knew that there was another wrestling promotion out there called WCW and there main guy was Sting. I think they also needed Bill Goldberg who was the main guy at the time of its closure and I think he could have drawn big with a feud with Undertaker at the time, and I think they also needed Eric Bischoff to maybe act as Shane McMahons business partner. I think the casual wrestling fan who had only seen WWF at the time barely had a clue who any of the WCW guys were other than DDP and Booker T. I think Lex Luger could have also made an impact as he was another face I allways asociated with WCW early on, and Ric Flair.

From what I heard when WCW had there first match on WWF Raw it was Booker T VS Buff Bagwell and they stunk the house out, apparently Vince McMahon was going nuts backstage and kicking off because none of the WCW wrestlers knew what they were doing in the ring, and made the decision after that one match that WCW didnt have enough talent to stand on its own, up until then Vince was planning on getting a WCW show on saturday nights (Source = Chris Jericho - Undisputed)

As for the commentating I was wrong about Stevie Ray, I always thought him and Scott Hudson called the match on Raw with Booker T and Buff Bagwell but it was Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson, sorry about that

I never really watched WCW but from the clips of Buff Bagwell i've seen, i really liked him, shame WWF Nitro tanked and they fired him

What happened with Rey Mysterio? WWE didn't bring him in until 18 months after they bought WCW, did they buy his contract straight away or in 2002

No problem man, I'm interested to see that nonetheless.

crobar did a make an appearance on velocity and Kaz Hayashi made one appearance also

Do you blame him? You get to basically take a paid vacation, spend time with your family and heal your body. I don't blame one single guy that sat out their Time Warner contracts for doing that.

John Laurinaitis also came over when WCW was bought out ... not 100% sure if his contract was immediately transferred over or if they signed him separately, but it was pretty quick.

The wrestlers who sat out and collected money on there contract were still allowed to wrestle as long it was non televised indipendant or outside of America, Rey Mysterio went back to Mexico, and alot of other wrestlers such as Sting, Lex Luger Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Konnan, Shane Douglas, Norman Smiley, Juventud, Psichosis, went on a european tour with WWA (which was an Australian promotion) along with all WWF wrestlers who had been recently released such as Road Dogg, Grand Master Sexay and others, aswell as all the unemployed ECW wrestlers it was a great show, I got to see it when it came to UK

To me, the problem wasn't that DDP and Booker weren't top guys, it's that they were the only ones. If guys like Awesome or Storm hadn't lost so much steam by the end, they could have helped a lot too, but most o the people brought in were seen as second rate compared to the WWE roster... Of course, the biggest problem was the booking and the fact that WWE made sure everyone knew they were second rate.





I think Rey did it more because his knee was banged up and there was no point getting out his lucrative deal when he couldn't actually wrestle. Also, he wouldn't have fit the invasion anyway, I just can't see Rey as a heel.

Also, Bagwell did it to himself. In the week he was there, he got into a fight with Shane Helms, had a match with Booker T that was so bad it ruined the concept of having WCW matches and almost cost Booker his job to, and took a day off having his mom call in for him. H just wasn't worth the hassle.