Booking the Invasion?

[Chuck]

I figured this would be the right thread to post this in.

 

Recently I have been really into the WWF/WCW Invasion during the 2001 era and have downloaded the mod from 07 and converted it to 08 (There are of course some small problems but I can live with it). I've been watching how poorly WWF/WCW executed the invasion and was wondering what should've been done differently and what your opinion is on everything... about to start a game and actually get through with a little bit before I start a diary (Really bad about starting diarys as I am doing the game).

 

If this is off-topic/needs to be put in Dog Pound then let me know.

[Tempest Kane]

Well first of all they should have held the whole thing off for about a year untill the contracts were up for the major stars of WCW or made more of an effort to buyout the contracts of atleast the core elements who otherwise decided to sit the contracts out at home getting payed.

 

1st Line Draft Picks : Booker T, Goldberg, DDP, Rey Mysterio Jr, Sting, Ric Flair, Scott Steiner, Dustin Rhodes, Kevin Nash, , Jeff Jarrett

 

2nd Line Draft Picks :

Billy Kidman , Buff Bagwell , Chris Kanyon , Chuck Palumbo , Lance Storm , Sean O'Haire , Shane Helms , Chavo Guerrero Jr. , Elix Skipper , Mark Jindrak

 

3rd Line Draft Picks :

Gene Okerlund , Vampiro , Alex Wright , Brian Adams , David Flair , Evan Karagias , Kid Romeo , Crowbar , Daffney , Stacy Keibler , Eric Bischoff

 

As you can see WWE took alot of second line draft picks to conduct their storyline, and opted not to buyout the contracts of many of the 1st line guys, if any since im pretty sure Scott, Booker, DDP & Rey took a pay cut to get back on TV early.

 

In anycase you need to take the essence of WCW and bottle it up, you need to allow for the key elements of WCW to get over so no dream matchs the very second they turn up, let them come in slowly few by few over a course of 2-3 months were they build up their overness and heat while working angle's and screwing with the WWE guys, then you can start the whole thing off with a real bang, the main thing the WWE didnt take into acount was alot of the WWE fans didnt know who many of the WCW guys were , or if they did they were not attached to their persona's and traits, This has to be established.

 

Once you get to the point of putting the dream matchs together, try to keep them competitive, the WWE seemed to think that this invasion was good for just under a year's worth of TV & PPV sales, i disagree... they could still be doing the damn thing today in 2009 if they had not ****ed it up, it should be drawn out, each WWE vs WCW match should mean something (aka PPVs) and you should be looking to find yourself in a brand split situation were all the WCW guys baring a handful of main eventers who perhaps appear on both shows are actually on a Nitro Brand, so the majority of their TV time is spent wrestling each other, meaning when they finaly do wrestle promotion vs promotion it means something EVERY SINGLE TIME.

 

This can go on for years, in the end you can even start adding new guys to the WCW roster who are created on the new show, meaning it littraly can go on forever, and you basicaly simulate promotion wars with the "super main eventers" from both "companys" crossing over to the other brands show once in awhile to cause mayhem while the GM's slug it out via video feed wars & bragging rights.

 

PS: You do NOT need Randy Savage. You do NOT need Scott Hall, and you most certainly do NOT need Hogan. By this point their all in terminal decline anyway, they are not core to the identiy of the product and are if anything going to hold back the public image of the brand and the talent within it, at a push you can save them for a year+ into the story and have them pop up and switch sides or something before leaving from a very very very short term contract.

 

You might also want to consider leaving Jeff out of the loop or fireing him after about 6 months so he can go found TNA

Hope that helps.

[Bigpapa42]

Well, any invasion angle has to amke the invaders look like a real threat. Which means they need get some wins over the big names. That's what the WWE did wrong, for my memory - all big WWE guys went over the invaders and it made the invasion meaningless. The exactly opposite happened in WCW with the NWO, where the invaders won time after time and just buried the home team. Booking an invasion angle well means finding a balance - make the invaders look dangerous and strong, but keep the alliance of defenders just strong enough to have hope and keep the fans support.

[Chuck]

Loving the feedback so far.

 

One thing I noticed is that as soon as the WCW Guys were brought in EVERYONE in the WWF was made a face or sent to WCW to be a heel and that really affected a lot of things as the crowd was used to hating certain guys but were then almost forced to cheer for them out of necessity... also portraying WCW or WWF as true heels/faces was a mistake as everyone should've been kept true to there character.

[shipshirt]

Bigpapa said it perfectly. You have to have that balance.

 

In answer to your other question about all of the invaders being heels and all the home team faces... That's why you can't make a company encompassing angle. The nWo worked best when it was Hogan, Hall, Nash...and maybe Six-pac in there too. It can't be an entire promotion invading because it gets way too unwieldly and you fall into the problems you mention above. Some wrestlers wouldn't give a crap about "outsiders" they would just want to win titles and get paid well. It can't be every wrestler on the roster's focus.

 

A more streamlined, focused feud would work best, IMO.

[dcxbox]

what i think should hav happened was vince work on keeping the tv slots for a short time, and getting new slots on another network if not tnt tbs

 

let shane run the company away from wwe. just be a seperate company.

 

same with ecw, but let paul run it and have some help dealing with the financial end of it.

 

shane could have eric bishoff on the creative and marketing and tv relationship end.

 

they could have nitro and raw on the same night vs one another forcing both creative teams to compete and fight to have the better show.

 

wwe if they wanted to could still form a brand split for raw and smackdown within the wwe to try something different.

 

 

it could have been huge for the wwe to focus on its core product and not so much doing things like wwe new york, and xfl and movies

 

 

but ecw, wcw and wwe (with the raw smackdown brand.

 

they could have huge tours

 

ecw has their own tour schedule prob and A and B show

 

wcw would have an A B maybe a C show

 

wwe would have raw and smackdown your with both and A and a B show.

wwe could even create a 3rd brand like they did with wwecw

 

and make it velocity which would be the show where the new comers get a chance to grow before making it to raw or smackdown, or some older stars to have a run helping other talent. they could tour smaller arenas within with the WWE BRANDING and also work supershows for WWE with raw and or smackdown.

 

all while firing jeff jarret and letting him and his dad form tna

 

roh can still happn and get tv a little sooner since wrestling would still be hot because the war continues.

 

xwf maybe happens cause hogan and henning dont go back to the wwf so xwf doesnt lose financial backing and ends up on FOX

 

ECW run as a seperate promotion with a BIG LIve weekly midnight show pretty much being the R rated edgy promotion think a combo of ecw with early shotgun saturday night.

 

wwe could keep wcw and ecw as the wrestling companies while wwe gets to be the sports entertainment company with variations of differences between raw and smackdown.

 

 

i think wrestling would be really hot right now if vince thought like that.

 

plus they could do huge international tours while still having promotions running shows home in the usa.

 

 

i would have the invasion happen with wcw and wwe for a short time though

 

i wouldnt bring ecw into the war though, even though wwe would own it with heyman running. i would wait 5-6 years then do a huge 3 way war.

[Chuck]

I agree completely on Shipshirt's views. The only guys who really are going to care about the company getting invaded are guys who are loyal to the WWF such as Undertaker or even Hardcore Holly.

 

I always thought that the Invasion could've been kickstarted at Wrestlemania perfectly... in these ways during these matches.

 

TAG TEAM MATCH

X-Factor (Justin Credible & X-Pac) vs Steve Blackman & Grandmaster Sexay:

If anyone actually gave a **** about this match it would've surprised me... have two WCW Guys end this early... hype up ****!

 

3-WAY WWF HARDCORE TITLE MATCH

Kane defeated Raven © and The Big Show to win the WWF Hardcore title!:

Insert any WCW Star in here to hijack the title.

 

STREET FIGHT

Shane McMahon vs. Vince McMahon

Always thought that Ric Flair would've made a better WCW Owner and him vs. Vince would've been epic.

 

TLC (TABLES/LADDERS/CHAIRS) 3-WAY TAG TEAM MATCH

Edge and Christian vs. the Dudleys vs. the Hardys

Always thought the Natural Born Thrillers could've inserted themselves in the final moments of this match and stole the belts.

 

 

Austin vs. the Rock

 

Three or four of the WCW members (MAIN EVENT guys like Goldberg, DDP and Booker) buy out front-row tickets and observe the match... no interference (Its a World Title Match at Mania after all).

 

That still leaves a huge amount of the card untouched by WCW.

[Chuck]

Game wise I am unsure how to do the Invasion without really doing it if that makes sense.

 

Basically want to play through the game as the WWF with the WCW guys slowly being introduced as characters of themselves (Not of generic bad guy heel invader #1) and then eventually work into a Brand Split with RAW and Smackdown. One of the problems with the Invasion was there was NO character development for half of the Alliance's roster.

 

Thinking about setting aside 2-4 debuts each month until it seems as if the whole WCW has snuck into the "WWF Guy" mode. One thing gamewise that this clashes with is the way to approach it... if I leave all the guys on the roster then by the time im at the last set of guys to debut then they could be severely impatient to debut. If I leave them in development then a few guys could get impatient being in developmental... the ideal situation is to not have them under contract at all so they can work indys (Obviously guys like Goldberg/DDP/Steiner will be to good for indys) and Japan and when the time comes sign them.

 

The Invasion aspect as a whole has to be treated either as a HUGE thing or done slowly to where the fans can slowly mark out for everything and milk it for all its worth in my opinion

[James Casey]

Sign them and put them on an unused brand. Have them work dark matches (maybe at PPVs) to stay in ring shape, and then make their debuts on TV as and when.

 

Really, the way to go with the InVasion is to do a complete brand split from day one - possibly with ECW as a B-brand as everyone bar RVD would be too low down the card to be worthy of significant exposure.

[Woodsmeister]

I would have booked it with wCw invading RAW the next night, like the WWF both sides have heels and faces, i would have tried to get as many big names as possible from wCw (Sting, Goldberg, DDP, Steiner, Flair, Booker T) and some young guys with potential or who hadnt developed a run (Mysterio, Kidman, O'Haire, Jindrak, Stasiak, Kanyon, Storm, Awesome) around 15 wrestlers (No nWo... yet).

 

Wrestlemania can go as it did with Austin even turning heel to side with Vince.

 

Next night on RAW, Shane arrives in his wCw limo but is turned away from the building by security as his dad has a restraining order against him. In the main event spot Austin w/ Vince does his little speech on why he joined forces with Vince McMahon (Money, Respect, The WWF Title), Vince explains why he has expelled Shane and the letters wCw from WWF history when the titan tron goes fuzzy and then comes on and in the parking lot a number of wCw guys (Booker, Steiner, DDP, Kanyon, Awesome and Storm) are beating the hell out of a number of WWF guys (Bradshaw, Faarooq, Crash, Hardcore who have been playing poker at the APA office). Vince goes bananas in the ring and sends the WWF roster to go take care of the invaders, the camera pans to the WWF locker room which emptys and chase the wCw guys to the outside where they dive into the limo and leave. Vince and Austin are alone in the ring when the lights go out and a beam appears in the rafters and Sting is stud with his bat pointing towards Austin, a few seconds pass when the lights go out again and back on and he has disapeared. Goldberg's music blasts over and Vince bolts through the crowd as Austin watches Da Man make his way to the ring they circle each other and go nose to nose, Austin backs off but then swings a line at Goldberg who ducks and drops him with a Spear, he takes out a number of WWF lower guys with power moves who make it to the ring but as the rest of the roster arrives he leaves through the crowd.

 

Bischoff arrives as wCw commissioner

Linda makes Foley the WWF commissioner once again

- so we have a heel and a face in power for both companies (Shane/Bishoff) and (Vince/Foley)

 

Bischoff will eventually turn on WCW bringing in the nWo as his evil plan all along.

 

ECW can also be brought in at some point to fued with both companies.

 

i have loads of ideas but only a short time to right them as im on my lunch at work.

[FlameSnoopy]

Woodsmeister that's a fantastic plan, I must say, though I wouldn't have Goldberg spearing Austin, as he would lose momentum and loads of momentum from that.. But nice still

[sprinklefurball]

I think the key thing missing was major players, Booker T, DDP and possibly Mike Awesome were really the only guys that could've been played as huge at that point, and WWF dropped the ball on all but Booker. There was no Nash, Sid (as a personality, due to the ankle injury), Jarrett(out of the question because Vince and him hate eachother, but then again Vince and Bischoff hated eachother) The Steiners, Bigelow, Mysterio, Luger, Flair, Road Warrior Animal or Sting, all people who had been on WCW programming in that year.

 

Stables shouldn't have been broken: Jung Dragons, 3 Count, Kronik, Filthy Animals, Air Raid (AJ Styles & Air Paris) etc.

[CQI13]

As long as you have credible storylines and you don't bury someone just because you don't like them, you'd be fine. DDP having a smoking hot Kimberly would NOT be stalking Taker's horse faced lady. It just wouldn't. Ugh. And if someone is dominating, they have to get theirs in the end. Otherwise, what's the point?

 

Some matchups that would have been nice:

 

DDP vs Rock (People's champion vs People's champion)

Goldberg vs Austin

Jung Dragons vs Three Count vs Edge/Christian vs Hardys

Dudley's vs ???

 

And of course the invaders have to go over in some of them early on. If not, you prove your brand is superior and I shouldn't bother watching later on, but if they dominate, then you must be REALLY bad if THEY went out of business.

 

But you can't wait a year until their contracts are up. You pony up the cash to get them, because you'd make the money back SOOOO quickly. The InVasion PPV did so well with not great matchups. At that point, people were pining for a bunch of stuff that would never had happened otherwise. But they blew their chance. I remember hearing stories that Vince thought that getting these big names would disrupt the payscale in the back. For a month or two perhaps. But if you do this properly, there would have been more money to go around later on. Similar as to how Tiger Woods is so great in golf. Sure he wins more than the rest, but the rest of the people stand to make more money because he's there.

[dcxbox]

As long as you have credible storylines and you don't bury someone just because you don't like them, you'd be fine. DDP having a smoking hot Kimberly would NOT be stalking Taker's horse faced lady. It just wouldn't. Ugh. And if someone is dominating, they have to get theirs in the end. Otherwise, what's the point?

 

Some matchups that would have been nice:

 

DDP vs Rock (People's champion vs People's champion)

Goldberg vs Austin

Jung Dragons vs Three Count vs Edge/Christian vs Hardys

Dudley's vs ???

 

And of course the invaders have to go over in some of them early on. If not, you prove your brand is superior and I shouldn't bother watching later on, but if they dominate, then you must be REALLY bad if THEY went out of business.

 

But you can't wait a year until their contracts are up. You pony up the cash to get them, because you'd make the money back SOOOO quickly. The InVasion PPV did so well with not great matchups. At that point, people were pining for a bunch of stuff that would never had happened otherwise. But they blew their chance. I remember hearing stories that Vince thought that getting these big names would disrupt the payscale in the back. For a month or two perhaps. But if you do this properly, there would have been more money to go around later on. Similar as to how Tiger Woods is so great in golf. Sure he wins more than the rest, but the rest of the people stand to make more money because he's there.

 

 

dudletys vs the nasty boys, just resign jerry saggs since he wasnt in wcw anymore, or sign rvd since he was going to the new eric bishoff owned wcw, and have him team with mike awesome, which you can later book the mike awesome rvd fued from that was to originally happen and be rvds push to the world title,well until wcw grabbed awesome and screwed that.

[Gypsumstack]

I'm getting ready to redo the invasion in my 2002 game I just started. But instead of WCW vs. WWF, it's going to be the WWF vs. the new NWO (Nash, Hall, HHH, HBK, and Xpac).

 

Vince is going to threaten to fire the NWO for not getting the job done when he brought them in. At this point, it's just Hall, Nash, and Pac. Instead, they are going to say it was them that killed WCW, just like they said they were going to do...and now they were going to kill the WWF.

 

At the same time, I delayed the draft until after Backlash. I also signed Foley out of hiatus and am going to have him be the guy that Flair sold his half of WWF to. Flair decided after Mania X8 that he wasn't done in the ring, so he couldn't be an owner.

 

NWO are going to threaten to steel the Undisputed title at Judgement Day. At JD, I plan on having the World title match be HHH (unbranded champ) vs. Austin (RAW #1 pick) vs. The Rock (SD #1 pick). At the time of the match, it will be Face vs. Face vs. Face, but I always turn Face/Heel divide to medium in my games for this reason.

 

Before the match, Vince is going to send down a bunch of loyal WWF guys to watch out for the NWO...kind of a lumberjack match, but they don't care what happens inside the ring. After the entrances, the NWO's music will hit and everyone will turn their attention to the entrance while the NWO make their way through the crowd, spread out on different sides. They storm the ring, but get stopped. After some brawling, they are escorted away from the ring and the match goes on after all three competitors give Vince an earfull for not getting the NWO under control. At the end, the NWO comes back out - this time from the stage. This again draws everyone to the ramp, including Stone Cold who has seen enough. From the crowd comes HBK, who superkicks The Rock. HHH gives a crotch chop to Vince, pins Rock, and the NWO celebrate with the WWF title as the show goes off the air.

 

I don't see many more being added to the group outside of the Kliq. One possibility is Brock Lesnar after Vince fires Heyman and Heyman bring Brock with him to the NWO, but still not sure about that.

 

I plan on just basically using my top guys for the storyline. Mostly Austin, Rock, Hogan and Flair at the beginning...possibly adding in some old WCW guys who "know how to deal with the NWO". This will lead to the debut of Sting, and also Goldberg if I decide to add Lesnar to the group.

 

My planned Summerslam matches involving the NWO are:

 

HHH vs. Austin for the Undiputed title.

HBK vs. The Rock

Hall/Nash vs. Flair/Sting

 

That's pretty much as far as I've gotten with my long term booking for the game. I'm thinking of, at some point, having the WWF "win" the war and Vince forcing the NWO to break up. The next night, the group just reunites as DX...which will eventually lead to a face turn for the group, giving them a whole new set of workers to feud with.

[Woodsmeister]

Woodsmeister that's a fantastic plan, I must say, though I wouldn't have Goldberg spearing Austin, as he would lose momentum and loads of momentum from that.. But nice still

 

I was contemplating just having the Sting moment but im sure Austin/Goldberg was the main attraction at the time.

 

Could possibly have had a Sting/Taker fued with him playing mind games with Taker for months leading to SummerSlam which would have been the main event, a bit like he did in wCw when fueding with the nWo where he didnt have a match he just was shown stalking his prey (so to speak).