Discussion for the mailbag:
I've seen various ideas on how the Invasion could have been made better. Some are better than others. However, could it have ever really worked as a true "WCW Invasion" in 2001? WCW was a joke of a promotion that nobody cared about or watched by the time it folded. The WWF had many of the greatest wrestlers of all-time in their primes at the time. It is pretty certain that for the Invaders to be taken seriously, they would've had to convincingly destroy/go over the WWF guys for a while before the WWF got their revenge. So, Scott Steiner, Booker T, Buff Bagwell, DDP, etc. were supposed to just roll over Austin, Rock, HHH, Taker, etc. for six months or so? It's not believeable and no one would buy it. They didn't have the option of guys like Sting, Flair, Hart, Goldberg or Hogan at that point, so honestly what could they have done differently to make a full-scale "invasion" better. Plus, Hogan's reaction at WM X8 showed that the crowd thought of most of those established WCW guys as nostalgia acts by that point anyway. I think Vince did the best he could with what he had, it just wasn't much. I personally believe several "Radicalz" like factions showing up over time would've been more effective.
Wrestling is WORKED. Booker T and DDP absolutely should have come in and rolled over everyone for six months because Vince controls the outcomes of the matches and owns all the properties. It was entirely in his best interest to make people care about the WCW name. You know how you make people believe someone can beat Steve Austin and The Rock? You have them beat Steve Austin and The Rock.
And they absolutely did have the option of Goldberg and Flair, they just didn't want to pay them. Big difference.
The invasion absolutely would have worked 100%. If they had done a triple main event at the Invasion PPV with Goldberg v. Austin, Booker T v. HHH and DDP v. The Rock they could have done rematches and six-mans and switched them around in different combinations for months afterwards and printed their own money for five years. As it was the PPV did one of the biggest buyrates in history for a non-WM show with a shit main event,so obviously people bought it no matter how lame it was.