How much did Vince buy WCW and ECW for?

Publish date: 2024-05-07

What a phenomenal deal for Vince though. He brought in some great talent (albeit not all of it was great), he got the opportunity to do the Invasion storyline


Ahh yes! The 'Invasion' storyline! Literally, the most screwed-up, botched angle in the history of Professional Wrestling hands down! Factually correct coverage of this (or any coverage of it for that matter) has never and probably will never appear on any WWE DVD release!

At the time, seemingly it was all so easy for Vinnie Mac. The plan after the WCW buyout was for WWFE to start shooting new WCW TV on June 9th, 2001 somewhere in Viginia, USA (I want to say Fairfax, However being on the other side of the world, my knowledge of the region isn't what it could be!)

Right from the get-go the angle and the WCW undercard guys themselves were being undermined by Kevin Dunn who loathes any Pro Wrestling product or performer that isn't WWF/WWE. Without going too off topic, I'll just say that Dunn was and is one of the most powerful people in WWE and has been Vince McMahon's chief 'Yes' man since 1984.

Anyway, The Invasion angle tanked for many reasons including the lack of true WCW headline talent, Guys like 'Taker who refused to comply with creative and have competitive matches with the WCW crew and instead not only stiffed and sandbagged them in the ring, but refused to put any of them over and so on and so forth.

Goldberg should have been brought in initially too. Unofficially, the reason why Vinnie Mac didn't buy out the contract is because it may have caused unrest in the locker room signing Bill for a guaranteed US$1M downside. However, Goldberg would have paid for his contract after just one WWF PPV appearence! Vince had to know this but he didn't bite. He and Bill played the waiting game until 2003...By that point, the magic was gone.

Also, One of the only true headline WCW stars to accept the buyout from his comfortable guaranteed WCW/Turner contract and in the process take a massive pay-cut, Vince McMahon mega mark Diamond Dallas Page was senselessly massacred.
Firstly, they changed his character, what was wrong with him coming in and acting like DDP!? What was with that watered down entrance track!? And why was he pinned live on RAW by the Underweartakers' then Wife Sarah!?

By Mid-August 2001, the WCW Invasion had fallen flat. They just resembled yet another faction in the WWF and were hardly "invaders". The addition of ECW and Stephanie McMahon`did nothing for the angle.

No disrespect to guys like Raven and Rhyno, but they were hardly threatening the WWF headline crew before the switch were they? Austin joining allowed Austin to turn heel and have one last hurrah, yes, but overall the whole thing just stunk. The TV ratings show that.
This was the beginning of the ratings slump the WWF/E suffered that is ongoing today.

Anyway, there's a whole lot more to this but those I feel are some of the main instances and reasons why the Invasion never took off the way it should have and spawned the greatest dream-PPV ever.

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