15 years ago today the WWF bought WCW

[Defrost]

And the long slide down began.

Here is an old Wrestler Observer Live from the eyada days on the day it happened.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/oy62f7

[Rancid_Planet]

How the lack of true competition crippled the WWE immediately and I mean instantly, is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

[G-Fresh]

A glorious day it was, Vince becoming the undisputed King.

[Rancid_Planet]

As someone who had strongly preferred WWE over WCW from the second Eric took over, I did my little happy dance that day. I had no idea that once the war was over Vince was going to sit on his hands for the next 15 years.

[Donald]

God bless Vince McMahon. Grabbed the competition by the throat and squeezed the life out of it. Bravo Mr. McMahon!

[G-Fresh]

As someone who had strongly preferred WWE over WCW from the second Eric took over, I did my little happy dance that day. I had no idea that once the war was over Vince was going to sit on his hands for the next 15 years.

I loved WCW when I was little. I gave up on it after Starrcade 1994 and didn't watch again until Vince bought it.

[Randolph]

Do we wait for Vince to die before wrestling becomes good again? If WWE acquires the best remaining talent of TNA, then the quality of WWE's talent will be through the roof. This is the kind of situation wrestling purists have been wanting from WWE for years now, but the writing and directing of said talent is as bad now as ever.

I think WWE going public was the worst thing to ever happen to WWE. Being mindful of investors and stockholders is what has gotten them to go PG.

[Donald]

Wrestling is good. It's just oversaturation that's killing it.

[G-Fresh]

I think WWE going public was the worst thing to ever happen to WWE. Being mindful of investors and stockholders is what has gotten them to go PG.

Vince doesn't have to give a fuck about the shareholders if he doesn't want to. They have no power.

[lotjx]

Vince doesn't have to give a fuck about the shareholders if he doesn't want to. They have no power.

Which is why the stock is fucking worthless and Steph has dumping it for years. There is going to be SEC hearing in their future if they have a fuck up like had when they rolled out the Network.

[Spedizzo]

Wrestling is good. It's just oversaturation that's killing it.

You have a point

Make RAW 1-2 hours a week and get rid of Smackdown and all of the impromptu specials. Bring back jobbers and make matches mean something. Build up characters, feuds, and payoffs.

it will never ever happen, but that is why wrestling is so blah

I can't sit through matches anymore. I just feel like I am watching guys doing moves. I have no emotional investment. Long hair don't care.

[G-Fresh]

Which is why the stock is fucking worthless and Steph has dumping it for years. There is going to be SEC hearing in their future if they have a fuck up like had when they rolled out the Network.

She has been strategically selling her stock and buying Real Estate. Diversifying her portfolio is a smart move. Fuck the SEC too.

[Peter Griffin]

And the long slide down began.

Here is an old Wrestler Observer Live from the eyada days on the day it happened.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/oy62f7

:o

[Peter Griffin]

I mean you blatantly set up this thread to shit on WWE, You are pathetic, Get help.

[Judas Iscariot]

He's not wrong.

[The_Mike]

I mean you blatantly set up this thread to shit on WWE, You are pathetic, Get help.

That's a bit unfair, it is a huge anniversary for a huge event in wrestling history. And the wrestling business did go into decline from that point on. These things are not disputable, whoever made the thread itself.

Anyway, it is interesting to see how fast the time has flown by, and how many 'eras' we have seen come and go without (to my mind) much significant progress. Once the dust was settled from the Invasion we had Ruthless Aggression which seemed to be a bit of a limp attempt to just to Attitude again, with less boobs, and then we had the Cena era for about ten years, and I'm sure I am forgetting some little phases the company went through here and there. Ultimately, though, it's just the same flaw that was visible from the outset of the Invasion angle - Vince is addicted to putting himself, his family and his chosen guys at the top of the pile and ignoring everything else.

[Donald]

You have a point

Make RAW 1-2 hours a week and get rid of Smackdown and all of the impromptu specials. Bring back jobbers and make matches mean something. Build up characters, feuds, and payoffs.

it will never ever happen, but that is why wrestling is so blah

I can't sit through matches anymore. I just feel like I am watching guys doing moves. I have no emotional investment. Long hair don't care.

I love long hair on wrestlers.

[JP]

How the lack of true competition crippled the WWE immediately and I mean instantly, is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

2001 is, by far, the best year of pro wrestling I've ever watched.

[Rancid_Planet]

01 was really good overall. Had some weak moments that I thought couldve been much better towards the end. But I still had more fun watching in 2000. But point taken. It probably took about 12-16 months to start to see the slow down.

[The_Mike]

2001 was very exciting and had some real gems in terms of matches, but I think it was where creatively WWE really started to fall apart and they haven't recovered since. They couldn't help themselves but make WCW a joke and fill their side with half of their own people, and make the whole thing really about the McMahon family. Without competition, of course they weren't worried about the fallout of self-indulgent storytelling, and their lack of restraint or patience has been a hallmark of WWE's creative ever since.

[Zeroice]

There's has been a big decline in the popularity of wrestling since WCW went under, just look at the ratings.

Having watched back then, WCW deserved to die, but there has been a big hole left in wrestling since they've closed down and that's unfortunate.

[The Law]

2001 was definitely the business peak. Wrestlemania 17 was the biggest pay-per-view in history to that point, and I think its buy number has only been surpassed a few times (Wrestlemanias 23 and 28). I see a few causes of the decline:

-Steve Austin's heel turn. They turned their #1 babyface at the same time Rock, their other #1 face, left. They had Undertaker on top against Austin, which was a stale feud we had seen many times before. Triple H was going to turn, but he got hurt. So they had to rely on Benoit and Jericho, who just weren't stars on the level of Rock, HHH, and Taker.

-The InVasion flopped. It started hot, InVasion drew a great number. But businesses got weaker and weaker after that, and by Survivor Series no one gave a shit. There were 1,000 issues with how this was put together. Not having WCW's top stars, having Austin join WCW, adding ECW in and neutering them immediately, not presenting The Alliance as on the same level as the WWF.

-Some people were primarily WCW fans who flipped over to Raw and stopped watching wrestling when WCW folded.

-The American economy slipped into a recession in 2001 and people had less disposable income. $30/month wrestling pay-per-view is a pretty easy thing to cut out if you're struggling.

-Wrestling's popular goes in cycles like everything else, and 2001 was the start of a wrestling decline in popularity. Same thing happened in the 1960s and the early 1990.

[The_Mike]

-Wrestling's popular goes in cycles like everything else, and 2001 was the start of a wrestling decline in popularity. Same thing happened in the 1960s and the early 1990.

I've never bought this argument. It is not a natural cycle like el Nino. The 1960s was a different world, for wrestling and all of entertainment, so it was basically an entirely different product then. In the modern era, wrestling boomed in the late 80s and late 90s. That's not enough to establish a pattern, and if such a pattern were extant, we are well beyond the time where another boom should have happened. These things happened because the audience was there for the product presented. The product presented now doesn't attract that audience. It has ever-increasing competition as well, and to be honest I don't think wrestling will ever truly boom again. Not unless a solar flare wipes out the Internet and the only TV anyone can afford to produce is to put lanterns around a ring and broadcast it on network television.

[lotjx]

I remember people bitching about Invasion, but if you go back and watch the PPVS there is a MOTYC or two in every PPV. Invasion suffered from a ton of things, but the workrate was not one of them.

[Zeroice]

I'm forgiving of poor booking to the Invasion just because of the Angle/Austin matches alone.

That might be the most underrated feud of all time.

[Sasori]

I found the video package for their feud a little while ago. It reminded me just how epic it was.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O_koCV18ew

[LOCONUT]

I've never bought this argument. It is not a natural cycle like el Nino. The 1960s was a different world, for wrestling and all of entertainment, so it was basically an entirely different product then. In the modern era, wrestling boomed in the late 80s and late 90s. That's not enough to establish a pattern, and if such a pattern were extant, we are well beyond the time where another boom should have happened. These things happened because the audience was there for the product presented. The product presented now doesn't attract that audience. It has ever-increasing competition as well, and to be honest I don't think wrestling will ever truly boom again. Not unless a solar flare wipes out the Internet and the only TV anyone can afford to produce is to put lanterns around a ring and broadcast it on network television.

Of course wrestling will boom again. It's been around forever and isn't going anywhere so a boom is inevitable.

The territories will rise and eventually the mid-south areas will get hot as fuck again, southern investors will pour in and real competition will happen again.

[JP]

Ignoring what it did to the business, in terms of effective character Austin's heel turn should be up there with Hogan's, he was never better.

[Romford Pele]

If the Rock had stuck around a bit longer after WMX7 you would have had a great feud that would really have cemented Austins feud. If HHH hadn't got hurt that could have been the next feud. At the end of that the turn could have worked.

They should have never have had Austin join the alliance. In fact, the angle should have been held off until Flair, Goldberg, Nash, Hogan and Hall were all in the mix. Without them there, WCW looked like jobbers.

[chatty]

I still cant believe they dropped the ball on Angle after that feud. They had him made and then triple turned him in a month.

He basically sacrificed himself because the Alliance team was so weak but they turned Jericho during the match when it would have been more effective beforehand (considering his turn didnt achieve anything) and sent him across instead.

[Nash Diesel]

The Invasion angle should have been a slow burn. Slowly bring in WCW talent that were available like DDP, Booker T, etc. and when the likes of Hogan, Nash, and others were available that's when you do the big WCW v. WWF storyline. I can't fault them for what they did, they wanted to keep the momentum going, they had certain ideas in place that were changed almost immediately so they scrambled.

The reality, and I'm sure smarter fans at the time definitely knew this, was that the WWF were not going to book WCW on their level. In any aspect. I don't blame them, they wanted to make a point about who was the superior company. They weren't going to turn Smackdown into Nitro, they had some questionable situations go down like having Stephanie "buy" ECW and then have ECW, who fucking hated WCW, team up....

[MMH]

Ignoring what it did to the business, in terms of effective character Austin's heel turn should be up there with Hogan's, he was never better.

He was probably a bit TOO good. How can anyone hate someone who is doing such good stuff?

[Merchant4Ever]

The funny thing is during Nitros dying days, they were getting 2.2 ratings up to 2.6, they even popped the occasional 3.0 or better ten times in the final year.

In other words, not too far off what Raw has been getting with no competition.

[The Rosk]

It's a different world now. With the internet and various ways of broadcasting now, I fail to see how they will ever reach similar heights again.

[Nash Diesel]

They were getting the highest ratings of any show on TNT and if TNT's higher ups weren't so negative about pro wrestling I'd bet WCW would still be around or at the very least would have been around for a few more years because Bischoff would've had the backing to be able to buy WCW. Without the tv though he lost his financial backers who didn't want to wait around for him to shop the brand to another station I guess.

[Nash Diesel]

It's a different world now. With the internet and various ways of broadcasting now, I fail to see how they will ever reach similar heights again.

They'll reach it in a way that won't be measured solely by television and ppv buys.

[The_Mike]

They'll reach it in a way that won't be measured solely by television and ppv buys.

What way? Ratings is the way that was being talked about.

[The Rogerer]

The US population has increased by 40 million in the last 15 years as well. That's 40 million people not watching wrestling I guess.

[chatty]

The Invasion angle should have been a slow burn. Slowly bring in WCW talent that were available like DDP, Booker T, etc. and when the likes of Hogan, Nash, and others were available that's when you do the big WCW v. WWF storyline. I can't fault them for what they did, they wanted to keep the momentum going, they had certain ideas in place that were changed almost immediately so they scrambled.

The reality, and I'm sure smarter fans at the time definitely knew this, was that the WWF were not going to book WCW on their level. In any aspect. I don't blame them, they wanted to make a point about who was the superior company. They weren't going to turn Smackdown into Nitro, they had some questionable situations go down like having Stephanie "buy" ECW and then have ECW, who fucking hated WCW, team up....

They should have played it out till Mania 18 imo. By that point they had Hogan, Nash, Hall and Flair and that alone would have lefd to huge matches. Keep Angle face and have him as the main face of WWE and then move Austn back into the tweener loner role he was most successful in as he couldn't work with the WCW top guys and had burnt his bridges with the WWE guys. Just have him say fuck it and go all carnage on anyone at anytime, that would always draw well for him.

Then instead of ending it at SS you can stack the odds for Mania and have huge matches:

Austin v Hogan
Vince v Flair
Outsiders v HHH/Rock
Angle v Jericho
Taker v Booker T
Kane v DDP
Edge v Christian

Best of 7 wins the company. 3 apiece going into Hogan v Austin and Austin wins it. Boom.

[Jay Hinchey]

So it's really hard to say but what if Bischoff had been able to get the deal to buy WCW to go through and re-launch with the Big Bang PPV. Would it still be around today or would it have not mattered in the end?

[G-Fresh]

They might have lasted another year or two, but nothing was gonna save them.

[The Law]

The problem is that deal was predicated on them keeping their TV spots on TNT and TBS, which it turned out AOL/Time Warner/Shinehardt Wig Company wasn't up for. Without TV, there's no viable business model. Going to be near impossible to sell enough tickets and pay-per-views to pay all those massive salaries without being on TV. And in 2001 there were a lot fewer TV options than there are today. USA and FX would be just about the only two that would make sense, and USA was 100% out on wrestling at that point.

If they had been on TV and shed the bad contracts, they could have survived. But that sadly just wasn't a realistic possibility in 2001.

[Jay Hinchey]

WWE.com did an article on the re-launch that never happened and it said WCW was looking at FX as their TV home.

[Nash Diesel]

What way? Ratings is the way that was being talked about.

I thought Rosk just meant popularity in general and most of the time that popularity when discussed is measured by the t.v. ratings and ppv buys which will become unnecessary means to rely on so heavily in this day and age.

[chatty]

Lets say Bishoff did take the reigns at WCW and buy them some time and they found a TV Network, TNA is unlikely to happen as jarrett would likely have stuck around WCW, would WCW be able to keep their top stars is the main question and either answer would lead to the question of would they have acquired the same talent that TNA got and would they have been an alternative to WWE for any stars that wanted out there?

Its impossible to stay but for some reason I have more faith that Bischoff would have done better in TNAs position than Dixie did, if so.

[The Rogerer]

I've never read anything like Death of WCW or even "Controversy Creates Cash", but did WCW actually make any money? I thought "CCC" was rubbish anyway as Bischoff got a lot of blank cheques and blew them for some TV ratings, Cash Creating Controversy.

[Nash Diesel]

I've never read anything like Death of WCW or even "Controversy Creates Cash", but did WCW actually make any money? I thought "CCC" was rubbish anyway as Bischoff got a lot of blank cheques and blew them for some TV ratings, Cash Creating Controversy.

So you have read Bischoff's book, one of the best wrestling-related books of all time, yet you're calling it rubbish? Or just the term is rubbish?

WCW did make money for a couple years, I think from late 96 to late 98, it wasn't long, but they did their best business when Bischoff was still the man. It's unfortunate for WCW, they were a television show to the powers that be after the merger and Ted lost all his stroke basically and they were treated like a television show that was hated. Highest ratings on the channel, but as soon as the suits saw their opening they kicked WCW off and that was that. It wasn't like they were getting horrid ratings and they were the 5th watched show on TBS and TNT.

[chatty]

WCW had to run at a loss to catch up with WWE who had a monopoly tbf. No business could challenge WWE without putting major money into it. Once they got there and should have been looking at turning profits they turned into a disaster.

[Nash Diesel]

Fuck they were already losing money until after the nWo started taking off. Bischoff was cutting costs left and right, him and his team are greatly underappreciated mainly due to the spin job the WWE and others have done over the years. It really wasn't until recently with the Network that the WWE gave WCW their true props. Seriously, go watch the Network Monday Night War specials, then compare it to the DVD they put out about 10 years ago, fucking night and day.

[RuneEdge]

Lets say Bishoff did take the reigns at WCW and buy them some time and they found a TV Network, TNA is unlikely to happen as jarrett would likely have stuck around WCW, would WCW be able to keep their top stars is the main question and either answer would lead to the question of would they have acquired the same talent that TNA got and would they have been an alternative to WWE for any stars that wanted out there?

Its impossible to stay but for some reason I have more faith that Bischoff would have done better in TNAs position than Dixie did, if so.
Bischoff would've got nowhere without Turner's money. Finding another network wouldn't save the company IMO. It just would've delayed the inevitable.

[Donald]

Why is it that WCW seemed to use smooth ropes, while WWE uses what looks like rougher ropes?

[The_Mike]

I thought Rosk just meant popularity in general and most of the time that popularity when discussed is measured by the t.v. ratings and ppv buys which will become unnecessary means to rely on so heavily in this day and age.

That's true, with on demand and DVR and Youtube to catch up on clips, ratings and buys aren't necessarily indicative of exactly how many people follow WWE, just how many watch a given broadcast. I'm here almost every day and couldn't tell you the last time I watched RAW, come to think of it. Still, I don't really believe they'll ever again become the big deal they were in the late 90s. The world is so different now that practically nothing can last longer than a week long trend on Twitter.

Though that's what we all said about Trump...

[Atty]

Trump should have bought WCW. It'd be amazing now. The belt was big and gold and they employed THE MOTHERFUCKING WALL.

[The_Mike]

He would've fired all the luchadores though.

[Rancid_Planet]

*We're going to get rid of that pathetic little belt. We're going to get something classy that'll light up like a Christmas tree. Real gold too. Not that cheap stuff. The classy stuff. Bright yellow. With my picture on it. It's gonna be HUGE.*

[G-Fresh]

Trump should have bought WCW. It'd be amazing now. The belt was big and gold and they employed THE MOTHERFUCKING WALL.

I remember rumors of Rupert Murdoch wanting to buy WCW back in the day. Him & Trump are the only people other than Vince that could get me to watch WCW.

[Atty]

He would've fired all the luchadores though.

Good. We need to find Doc Brown so we can fix the timeline.

[The Law]

WCW was super profitable for a couple years, 1996-1998. 1999 they lost money, then in 2000 they lost a staggering amount. $80 million or something like that. I have always wondered about some the legitimacy of the accounting in both directions. Turner could have exaggerated losses for tax purposes, but also some of the losses might have been understated because lots of the top guys have contracts with Turner rather than WCW.

The WCW brand was still strong. The ratings they were doing were way down from their peak, but still pretty strong compared to just about anything else on cable at the time. The sales of WCW DVDs over the years show that there's still traction there.

I look at the fact that TNA was able to find a fan-base and survive for years using a lot of ex-WCW talent and I see how WCW could have lived on. They'd have had to strip it down, cut costs, run mostly southern towns for awhile. If you look at the roster of guys who went to the WWF right away it's still a pretty decent group: Booker T, DDP, Lance Storm, Natural Born Thrillers, Bagwell, Shane Helms, Chavo. Add in Jarrett and some of the cruiserweights WWF didn't want and it's enough to stay afloat if you have TV. Then as contracts start expiring you can look at bringing in some of the bigger stars at reduced costs.

There was a path there, but they needed TV. Bischoff could only buy the company if they had a TV deal, and they couldn't put one together in the time they had.

[The_Mike]

Good. We need to find Doc Brown so we can fix the timeline.

I'm not sure where the Doc is, but I do know where to find a Great Scot!

[OD50]

Why is it that WCW seemed to use smooth ropes, while WWE uses what looks like rougher ropes?
WCW used steel cables wrapped in plastic, WWF/E uses real ropes. Most promotions (like TNA and RoH) use the steel cable variant, which I guess is much cheaper, the cost was probably not an issue for WCW though. Steel cables are much tighter and better for springboard moves, I have a felling Mick Foley would still have two complete ears if WCW had used WWF style ropes though..

[The Law]

It's really crazy to watch shows from the 80s and see how loose the ropes are. Andre would do that spot in every match where he'd get tied up in the ropes just by falling into them. You can still tie somebody in the ropes today but it takes a hell of a lot more effort than that.

[Nash Diesel]

Would Bischoff have faced the same issues with big name contracts like the WWE did? I mean you had Nash saying he sat at home for a year and collected his 1.5 million or whatever as opposed to going to work for Vince for a 700k contract. Goldberg sat out almost 2 years didn't he? But like Law said you still had some decent names and they would've had some names that wound up working TNA like AJ Styles who was part of WCW at the time if I remember correctly. I know Daniel Bryan talked about how he thought he'd probably wind up in WCW due to the cruiserweights.

[The Law]

I think getting the top guys out of their contracts would have been too expensive. A big part of what you had to do was shed the bad contracts and cut costs, so that means going without Sting, Hogan, Nash, Hall, Goldberg, and whoever else for the initial phase. It's not like those guys were locked up forever, they were basically all working in WWE or other places within two years of WCW folding.

They wouldn't have been stacked with top names initially, but you can do worse than Booker T, DDP, and Jarrett. AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels were with WCW at the end, start scooping up Indy talent like Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe that WWE wasn't interested in. You basically end up with TNA with a better brand. Bischoff wouldn't have brought in Vince Russo, so that's one big difference. It's an interesting "what if?" to play around with.

[Nash Diesel]

Imagine what 2001 and beyond would look like in the WWE without the purchase of WCW. That's the biggest what if.

[The Law]

The claim is that they moved up the Invasion because of Triple H's injury, but I don't really get that. Rock was coming back in August, so they had their big feud for Summerslam and into the fall between Rock and Austin. They had to get through the July pay-per-view as a bridge to Rock coming back. Austin vs. Jericho in July would have been just fine, the bottom wouldn't have fallen out on business. Then you have a huge Rock/Austin main event for Summerslam. Probably have them go their separate ways after Summerslam, go with Austin/Angle and Rock/Jericho into the fall. I think combinations of those four guys can carry you through the rest of the year, at which point Triple H comes back incredibly hot.

No shortage of possibilities for Wrestlemania: Rock/Austin, Rock/HHH/Austin, HHH/Austin. Any of those three would be an enormous main event. You come out of Wrestlemania with Triple H as a hot babyface champ, Rock goes away to film another movie. You can pick up the HHH/Austin feud or run HHH against Angle or Jericho. Maybe you start having Austin work with some guys you're trying to move up from the midcard: Guerrero, Van Dam, Edge. Oh, and Brock Lesnar debuts the night after Wrestlemania 18.

[JustDuett]

The claim is that they moved up the Invasion because of Triple H's injury, but I don't really get that. Rock was coming back in August, so they had their big feud for Summerslam and into the fall between Rock and Austin. They had to get through the July pay-per-view as a bridge to Rock coming back. Austin vs. Jericho in July would have been just fine, the bottom wouldn't have fallen out on business. Then you have a huge Rock/Austin main event for Summerslam. Probably have them go their separate ways after Summerslam, go with Austin/Angle and Rock/Jericho into the fall. I think combinations of those four guys can carry you through the rest of the year, at which point Triple H comes back incredibly hot.

No shortage of possibilities for Wrestlemania: Rock/Austin, Rock/HHH/Austin, HHH/Austin. Any of those three would be an enormous main event. You come out of Wrestlemania with Triple H as a hot babyface champ, Rock goes away to film another movie. You can pick up the HHH/Austin feud or run HHH against Angle or Jericho. Maybe you start having Austin work with some guys you're trying to move up from the midcard: Guerrero, Van Dam, Edge. Oh, and Brock Lesnar debuts the night after Wrestlemania 18.

I think all of those options would have made for entertaining business through the end of 2001 into the spring/summer 2002, but that is definitely asking A LOT of Vince to sit on his hands for a year or more on implementing WCW. Vince's decision to low ball some of the bigger names, or to simply just wait until their Turner contracts expired, was a misstep IMO. I know money wasn't flowing like it had been, so he was probably forced to hold back on gathering all of the chess pieces at once, but his inability to let things slow burn combined with his limitations of immediately-available WCW talent sucked most of the excitement out of their one shot at the Invasion.

I wonder if they could have had the wherewithal to run it like another "brand" (like the press release hinted and like the rumor mills were reporting) for a little while, maybe something like the ECW they put out a few years later, while waiting for some of the bigger names to become available.

[Nash Diesel]

The best rumor I heard and this deals with post-Invasion angle but the rumor I like the most is the following:

Triple H was originally supposed to come back and help Austin and Rock battle the nWo and it would have lead to a 6-man tag match at WM 18 with Jericho v. Kurt Angle as the main event or at least the World title match. But the story was that Triple H wanted to come back and go over Jericho for the World title. That could possibly be why Jericho won the unification tournament in December because there was that built in story of Jericho being the one who put Trips in the Walls of Jericho after tearing his ACL or quad, whatever.

I have zero idea if that was ever in the cards or not, the 6-man. I've never heard anyone involved in that rumor talk about it so while it sounded cool as fuck, I don't think it was ever a realistic situation. But I love the idea, it would've been a great match. Hell I probably would have put Taker with Austin/Rock because the nWo had Nash so WWF would've had a big guy as well.

[The Law]

I think that sounds reasonable. I also don't think it was a bad move to have HHH come back and win the title at Wrestlemania, it's a pretty basic story. The only real issue was that Rock and Hogan blew the roof off in the mid-card, while they made Jericho look like a piece of shit for the most of the build-up.

[Rancid_Planet]

They turned the feud into Stephanie vs HHH with Jericho just wrestling as her avatar. They made him a dog walker. A joke. It fucking sucked.

[The Law]

Also the fact that they weren't ballsy enough to make Jericho and Steph a couple. Jericho beating the shit out of HHH and then making out with Steph in front of him would have gotten major heat.

I always thought the right move after Wrestlemania 18 would have been to turn HHH heel and make him the leader of the NWO. Him, Hall, Nash, and then add in X-Pac. Storyline still would have ended up failing because Hall was a mess and Nash kept getting hurt, but it would have been better than putting Big Show, Flair, and Booker T in there.

[Rancid_Planet]

I think it's safe to say Trips doesn't like Steph being used in storylines like that. Remember when the Angle romance thing just ended all abrupt?