The 10 Biggest Booking Errors During The Invasion

It's been nearly two decades, but The Invasion remains the greatest missed opportunity in wrestling history. This was the dream battle wrestling fans had been imagining for decades, WWF vs WCW. The idea of finally deciding who was better would be nothing short of an epic encounter with fans booking dozens of scenarios for it. And not one could be close to the epic failure the entire angle was. It did nothing but bury WCW, made no new stars, and ended one of wrestling's best eras.

The litany of mistakes has been well covered over the years but do bear repeating. WWE couldn't have mangled the Invasion worse if they'd tried from the wrong workers as the "stars" to the leadership to bungling various title and story changes. It's still remarkable how badly WWE dropped the ball as these ten booking decisions showcase how the would-be perfect angle turned into one of wrestling's greatest debacles.

10 Waiting Too Long To Start It

The best time to try an "Invasion" was right after Shane "bought" WCW on the final Nitro. Granted, WWE was busy with stuff like Austin and HHH as the "Two Man Power Trip" and planning to push WCW as a separate brand.

But WCW was a bit hot after that, and maybe going after WWE then could have gotten some big names like Sting, Flair, and others to take part. Waiting until June to start it up was a poor move as striking when the iron was hot would have gotten The Invasion going much faster for fans.

9 The Bad Title Changes

Trivia question: Who was the first Alliance member to win a title? Mike Awesome with the Hardcore Belt. Yes, Alliance members held belts but mostly ex-WWE guys like The Dudley Boyz and not as many real WCW stalwarts.

When one WCW guy did win gold (like Lance Storm as IC Champ), it wasn't for long, and he dropped it to a WWE guy. Then all the WCW belts mixed into things to make it confusing who was champion of what on a given basis. Title changes should have meant something but just another lousy part of the Invasion.

8 Didn't Pay For The Big Stars

The "Monday Night War" series best summed up The Invasion's biggest problem: The majority of prominent WCW names (Sting, Goldberg, Hogan, Hall, Nash, etc) were not coming over. They were content to let their Turner contracts run out rather than join WWE.

Without that, The Invasion was made up of second-tier guys. WWE should have done their best to make any offers possible to get these big guys in as they would have made WCW more impressive. Look at how Flair's return sparked things on Raw, just a few top WCW guys could have salvaged The Invasion.

7 DDP Getting Buried

Diamond Dallas Page was the biggest name among the WCW guys coming in and had a big entrance as the "stalker" for Undertaker's wife. But after that initial push, DDP was sinking, crushed by Undertaker and Kane, and then fell into obscurity.

DDP as Alliance leader would have made far more sense than Austin or Angle, but all he got was the dumb "Motivational speaker" gimmick. Wasting this WCW legend was a foolish move by WWE.

6 The Wrong Guys Defecting

WWE tried to push things up by having guys "defect" to The Alliance, which could have been impressive...except they made the wrong choices. Test was nobody big in WWE so having him join up made little difference. Christian was still young and soon brushed aside for the feud with Edge.

Then there was Regal turned coat leaving his role as WWE Commissioner and joining The Alliance. Worse was Angle turning for no reason at all after being made as WWE's top babyface. Maybe someone like Chris Jericho or another wrestler with WCW ties could have made more sense than these poor choices.

5 Booker Vs Buff Bagwell

The early plan was for WCW to be its own separate brand, much like NXT today or the split between Raw and SmackDown. But the audiences reacted negatively to what would be a test on this concept when the main event of Raw effectively became a WCW segment for that product's World Heavyweight Championship. Booker T vs Buff Bagwell wasn't received well by the live audience in Tacoma, Washington, on the July 2, 2001, episode of Raw Is War.

Maybe had WWE chosen someone else to face Booker, to give him a real challenge, it could have gone better and avoided many problems. Bagwell was just not the guy deserving of this spotlight, and the reaction to the match caused so many problems down the line.

4 Not Letting ECW Run Wild As Their Own Entity

For a few minutes, the Invasion had a wild turn as the ECW workers of both sides joined together, and Paul Heyman declared, "The tribe of the Extreme is back!" The idea of ECW going at it with both WWE and WCW was terrific and could have provided weeks of story fodder.

Instead, ECW was part of The Alliance, and Heyman became the second fiddle to Shane and Steph. Letting ECW run for a while on its own could have provided more excitement than just tossing them into The Alliance with almost no warning. Unfortunately, Vince McMahon didn't own ECW's assets until 2003, so featuring the ECW name too prominently at the time could be an issue.

3 Austin Joining The Alliance

Steve Austin's 2001 heel turn may not have worked as planned as fans just didn't want to boo him. Having him drop his goofy character to be the old Stone Cold was great but turning on WWE to join The Alliance made no sense.

It's well known how Austin hated WCW firing him years before, so the decision to join them was illogical. More importantly, it showed The Alliance needed a huge WWE guy to back them up and look important. Having Austin leading WWE would have been better, but having him as the leader of The Alliance proved how bad WCW was at the time. The WCW talent who were fresh in the WWE couldn't stand on their own legs without The Texas Rattlesnake propping their team up.

2 Never Letting WCW Look Strong Compared To WWE

Ironically, the critical flaw of the nWo invading WCW was how the smaller nWo made the WCW guys look like chumps. Now, with an entire company, Vince just couldn't let them be seen as truly strong. Granted, a lot of major guys were sitting it out, but there was still potential in the young guns of The Alliance showing their stuff.

Instead, WCW was constantly beaten down by WWE guys and only strengthened by defections like Austin and Angle. The refusal to let WCW be seen on equal footing with WWE ruined The Invasion from the beginning.

1 Shane & Stephanie Being Featured Too Prominently

For years, fans had dreamed of Eric Bischoff and Vince finally squaring off, and Bischoff leading the WCW faction made total sense. Instead, Shane "bought" WCW to stick it to Vince, which led to their great Mania match. Yet, it was annoying that Shane was seen as WCW's "savior" when he was Vince's son.

Worse was Stephanie coming in as the new "owner" of ECW when Heyman was right there. The would-be epic war was nothing more than a retread of the tired McMahon family feud and treated WCW as an afterthought, which ruined the entire Invasion early on.

Next: 10 WCW Superstars Who Became World Champions In WWE