#FiftyMatches: The End Of The Invasion

Team WWF (The Rock, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show) v. The Alliance ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Rob Van Dam, Shane McMahon)

"Winner Takes All"

Survivor Series 2001
November 18, 2001

"The stakes have never been higher in the history of this business." -Jim Ross

On Friday, March 23, 2001, the unthinkable occurred. The World Wrestling Federation purchased World Championship Wrestling. It was the end of a decades-long, and deeply personal, rivalry.

Three days later, on Monday, March 26, 2001, the purchase was revealed to the world. It was perhaps the most mind-blowing moment in the history of professional wrestling.

Shane McMahon's words sound almost ridiculous now, but that's because we know what followed. On paper, The Invasion looked like a license to print money. That's certainly the way the WWF looked at it. The company boasted about the purchase in corporate news releases, promising exciting things that would take its vision of sports entertainment to even loftier heights. Remember, at this point in its history, the WWF was still riding the wave of one of the most popular periods in the history of professional wrestling.

The purchase of WCW was never supposed to mean its end. It was supposed to be a new beginning. Unfortunately, the WWF's plan to rehabilitate the WCW brand failed before it could even get started. No network was willing to invest television time in what it viewed as a failed professional wrestling product, even if that brand now came with the backing and support of the WWF.  Unable to secure WCW a time-slot on cable television, the WWF was forced to come up with something else to do with its new investment.

The Invasion consumed WWF programming for nearly seven months. It was supposed to be an epic clash, but the cracks in World Championship Wrestling quickly appeared. It was not the same company that nearly ran the WWF out of business. Its talent pool was drained by expensive guaranteed contracts for top stars that the WWF was unwilling to buy out. That left an overmatched group to take on the superpower that had become the WWF.

It's not like the WWF didn't try to make The Invasion work. Just weeks before the InVasion pay per view, the dynamic of the story line shifted in one brilliant night of television. The WWF still had an ace up its sleeve, and it decided to play it. 

The introduction of Extreme Championship Wrestling was a huge shot in the arm for The Invasion. Allegiances shifted among various superstars, and it appeared there could be a believable balance of power in the war between the WWF and what was now known as The Alliance.

Sadly, that didn't last long. Even with defector "Stone Cold" Steve Austin leading the charge, it was hard to cover up the fact that The Alliance was outgunned in its war with the WWF. With no real future in sight, the WWF decided to bring The Invasion to its conclusion in one epic match.

All you really need to know about how The Invasion worked out is this - When it finally came time to decide a winner once and for all, there was only one WCW performer and one ECW performer involved in the match.

There were certainly some enjoyable things about the "Winner Take All" match. The tension between The Rock and Chris Jericho is a personal highlight for me. Jericho's cheap shot in the closing moments is so blindly selfish, it's brilliant. Of course, The Rock survived and scored one of the most meaningful victories of his career, cleanly defeating "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for the first time on pay per view.

...and with that the most ambitious and disappointing story line in professional wrestling history limped to its inevitable conclusion. The ironic final image of Survivor Series 2001 is the self-aggrandizing spectacle of Vince McMahon standing on the stage, celebrating the victory of the company he created over the company he was too foolish to treat with the respect that could have enabled him to profit from it.

The following night on Raw, the WWF firmly and decisively put The Invasion in the past. Perhaps it was its was of apologizing to fans for seven months of disappointment. The WWF pushed the reset button. In a single night, it put everything back the way it was before The Invasion, almost as if it had never happened. That is, with one exception. The night after WCW died for the last time, the one man who perhaps could have saved it made his long-awaited return to WWF television.