It could almost be considered Vince's final middle finger to Turner

At that point even 1 date would be a increase for much less pay.

His final middle finger? He hasn't ****ed up about winning the Monday night wars in 15 years!

Not enough to cover the cost of bringing Hogan in though. Plus you'd actually have to book the match which as WWE would find out a little later is easier said than done.


It was more than that. There were reports that Austin point blank refused to work with Hogan (and do the WrestleMania match which was WWE's first choice) because he was positive that Hogan would go out of his way to undercut him. He was somewhat vindicated by what actually happened with Hogan/Rock as well. However, I think with hindsight Austin has admitted that he probably should have done the match with Hogan and somewhat regrets not doing it.

Indeed but PWI seems to be driven entirely by domestic US concerns which is a little odd when discussing whether or not to recognise a World Title as a World Title.


I suspect she's talking about big percentage gains rather than real term gains which is a slightly misleading thing to. Its not at all uncommon within the television industry thoug.

I don't think it would have been paid back in one PPV, but picking up the contracts of the top WCW stars would have paid off in the long run if Vince had let go of his ego and booked a WCW invasion of the WWE properly.

Just look at the buyrate for Invasion, if a show without the main WCW stars could be as successful as that, they could have done equally as well with future PPV's if they had the top stars.

Does anyone know how much Vince had to pay for bringing some of WCW's bigger stars in 2002 and 2003?

What would that have looked like? I can't help but feel that the Invasion angle is always going to be one of those things that disappoints. I suspect TNA will have similar problems if they do run a GFW invasion angle. Its just inherently never going to live up to what people want it to be.


I'd imagine less than he otherwise would have.

It's an ego thing really. What promoter is going to agree to actively show that their own product and wrestlers are inferior to their invaders? Other than WCW and TNA I guess, but even then it was with factions rather than other promotions, at least ostensibly. But Vince was in a unique position to take that risk because he owned wrestling and thus theoretically couldn't have suffered from doing so.

The GFW will be worse as 90% of the talent will be guys who were in TNA this time last week anyway.

So all the cross over matches we have seen 100X

But the problem here of course is that there wasn't a WCW any more. Ultimately this is where the Invasion angle was always going to fall apart. WCW were the only group that could the aggressors because there was nowhere or way for WWE to effectively strike back against them. There wasn't a WCW Nitro to invade. This is part of why the WCW guys inevitably ended up looking incredibly weak as well because there wasn't an effective forum where they could look strong after the initial excitement of them invading.

This is why I say TNA and GFW are going to have similar problems. GFW doesn't have a forum of its own to play in at this point. Its no coincidence that the most successful interpromotional battle I can think of is the RoH/CZW one where both companies had their own (independent) platforms.

In truth I don't think people wanted an Invasion angle. They wanted a WCW vs. WWE show. Or a series of them that were largely free of overarching angles and stories. But even if WWE brought the major stars in they weren't going to be able to book that because there wasn't a WCW.

Making WCW's stars look like a real threat and not turning the invasion storyline into a McMahon family feud would have helped.

Even if it didn't live up to everyone's expectations, the invasion should have been a lot more successful than it was.

Yeah. I think it's honestly the biggest missed opportunity in wrestling history. If they had have gotten it perfectly, they could have been kept in great business for like two years. The fact that it was done within like six months says it all.

Take DDP as an example. He could have been a valued member of the alliance, but they gave him that ridiculous stalker gimmick.

But anyhow, I've finally finished what with likely be the final ever TNA PPV. I'm not sure if I was in a different mood when I came back to this show or if it just took a serious nosedive because I enjoyed the first four matches way more than the last four. But the show itself was like an extended metaphor of TNA's entire existence. The wrestling was generally good, everyone tried hard, there were moments of immense stupidity but the major issues were the poor production and the terrible booking of finishes.

Tigre Uno vs DJ Z vs Manik was an enjoyable spotfest to get the crowd into the show that I enjoyed a lot. Could've let the 1 vs 1 section have a bit more time though. **3/4

Jesse Godderz vs Robbie E. Better than I was expecting and both men worked really hard. Crowd was way into it even though it was a basic match. The finish was shit though, coming completely out of the blue and looking really weak. The match was odd in the sense that I felt that it went too long AND managed to lack a proper finishing sequence. **1/2

Matt Morgan vs Bram. Can Bram do anything other than garbage matches? This was pretty bad as both men are basically shit. The camera work for the finish was woeful too. 1/2*

Austin Aires vs Davy Richards. Best match of the night by a considerable margin. I'm not usually a huge Richards fan but he did well with Aires leading him. Aires came across as really good in this match. Once again, the finish was crap, really sucking the positivity out of a good match. The cameras almost missed the pin too. ***1/2

Kong and Brooke vs Dollhouse. This was fine but unspectacular. I think I heard somewhere that Kong needs back surgery. The Knockouts used to be the stand out for TNA but that wonders of the NXT women mean that the best TNA stuff doesn't even seem that great in retrospect now. **1/4

James Storm vs Magnus. Bryan Alvarez dubbed this match the Everyone Leaves Town Match. Both men tried hard but I don't think it was worked properly. It should have been more than the usual weapons match I think. I also didn't like the ending. Why not just put the babyface over seeing that it's the last appearance for both men, especially given what has actually gone on in this fiasco of a storyline? ***

ECIII and Tyrus vs Lashley and Mr Anderson. Carter and Lashley are both good when they're working with other good workers. Sadly, Tyrus and Anderson are both shit. Really shit. This was kind of a nothing match that would have been better as an ECIII vs Lashley singles. *

King Of The Mountain. Only TNA could book a reverse ladder match and then decide to make it more convoluted. This is seriously a bad gimmick. Added to that, there were three really stupid spots in the match; the piledirver on the ladder, the Galloway DDT on the ladder and the big botch with Hardy, Galloway and Jeff. The booking seems strangely counter-intuitive in that the big babyface victory goes to the leader of another company who has been in the TNA bad books for ages. But it's hard to really see where this is all going in terms of the bigger picture. Everyone tried hard once again. **1/2

There's my overly self-important review of the show.

And then Taker essentially buried him. 2001 Taker was painful.

The problem of course is that without the McMahon family feud aspect I'm not sure what the end game for the Invasion angle is. I mean what's the narrative that drives a WCW invasion long term without that? Particularly a WCW invasion without stars. Sure you can get a series of one-off shows and matches without a big narrative focus but its hard to drive months (or even years) of television without it. WCW needed a figure head and in truth I think Shane McMahon was probably the best option they had. Stephanie's involvement with ECW was utterly ridiculous though.

To be honest I think the basic story they were telling was good. Shane and Stephanie basically getting fed up of waiting for Vince to die and going into business for themselves to drive him out of business is a good story. It just doesn't work as well when it all has to play out on WWE television. In many respects I think WWE didn't go far enough with the McMahon family feud angle. I think it probably would have worked much more effectively if they'd made Vince his own worst enemy. Play with the fact that he's run or runs WWE as his own personal kingdom and this has not only driven his kids into competition with him but results in many of his top stars taking the chance to get out and work in a better place. That they were so intent on pushing WCW as the heels was problematic.

Even with that said I think they still had the chance to save all of this if they'd gone further down the road they teased with Paul Heyman being the evil manipulator pulling all the strings. Heyman did an epic promo on Smackdown during the Invasion (he did a couple in fact) where he just rips into Vince McMahon for stealing all his ideas and ultimately meaning he went out of business. If they'd put that front and centre as a story point the Invasion still could have worked.

In general the problem is that the Invasion was just half arsed I guess. They knew people were going to buy basically no matter what so they just didn't really bother.

If TNA is planning some kind of angle with GFW then they'd do well to really study the Invasion angle and learn from some of those mistakes.


I wouldn't really deny this but I would just again say I think without WCW being its own entity still with its own platform it was never really going to work.

I really don't think that stalker angle was bad. Well not the basic concept of it anyway. It went off the rails but the original idea was really good.


The bigger issue was that Taker's then wife buried him as well.

Who would he have signed? Were alot of the big boys on a guaranteed contract?

It likely would have been a roster similar to the one that WWE brought with them. I doubt the money would have been there for guys like Hogan, Sting and Goldberg even if they could convince them to take buy outs of their Time Warner deals. That however could have been in a blessing for the company.

FMKK, I agree that the finish of Storm / Magnus was weird. Not only was it hard to execute convincingly, but I agree - why not just put Magnus over? It wouldn't damage Storm - he still managed to virtually kill him and (presumably) actually kill his fiance.

Was this actually Magnus' best ever singles match? I think it might have been.

I love Kong's new look but it's clear she's having difficulty walking.

Jessie Godderz is an amazing deranged narcissistic heel.

My very small disagreements were that I didn't find KOTM as convoluted or hard to follow as I thought I would, and actually quite liked the match concept. I also liked the ladder piledriver spot, just because I've never seen it before. However, I still think that if somebody gets piledrived in a match they need to leave on a stretcher - people 'recovering' from piledrivers, especially onto ladders, just looks stupid.

It could well have been Magnus' best match, though I think I vaguely remember him having a very good match with AJ Styles ages ago. He seems solid but pretty unspectacular to me, but his title run didn't actually help him out all that much because the matches all had tons of interference etc. that limited his ability to have a good match.

Alexi, I think the key to the TNA / GFW invasion (if they do it) is that GFW has to win, at least temporarily. I want GFW to completely disrupt and dominate TNA shows, and in a month or so I want to see a GFW title sequence, GFW belts and set changes, the show called 'GFW Imapct' in my EPG (or something else?). The works.

That's the only way the angle becomes something original and exciting. Anything else is just another bloody faction angle.

I'd argue too that's the only way the old WWF / WCW invasion could have worked. I think the idea to have WCW take over RAW was really exciting. It would have given them the platform which you rightly point out they lacked after Nitro's cancellation, to have a proper inter-promotional war. It's a shame the network allegedly vetoed the idea.

The problem with the lack of the big WCW names, however, seems like it was insoluble and would have severely tested the angle I admit. TNA / GFW has a similar problem as James Frederick pointed out - there's not much truly 'new' talent. So I think the answer is to lean heavily on talent which hasn't been in TNA for a while - so Jeff as obvious figurehead, and a roster of people who haven't been on TNA for a while or who never have, especially if they have alleged beef with the company.

The rumours of Magnus and Storm 'crossing over' to GFW are worrying. If it was up to me there would be no crossing over, it dilutes the whole angle. I really hated it when WWE wrestlers started crossing over to 'WCW' and 'ECW'. Killed the entire angle stone dead for me.

GFW taking over completely seems like an interesting way to go but, with their backs to the wall and one taping session left, is there even time to pull that off?

The Magnus and Storm crossing over thing is also an issue because they've just had a blood feud and now they're just going to be on the same team.

The other thing, I don't find it realistic that GFW just walk in and set up their ring, logo, change the show logo and TNA/Destination America/all television providers go along with the change.

why didnt wwe just put armed security on arena doors to stop wcw invading? why did people want to see a wcw invasion if its so unrealistic?

come on now.