Booking a WCW Invasion in TNA

[burnum81]

I just started a game with TNA, starting right before the Bound For Glory PPV. I already signed a bunch of former WCW workers (headed by Chris Jericho and Cactus Jack) and I want to book an invasion storyline in which the WCW guys invade TNA and eventually take over the company, later renaming it to WCW as a Foley-led consortium bought the naming rights from Vince.

 

I have some basic ideas in mind but nothing specific on how to book the story. It's supposed to be a long-running storyline, beginning in late October and running into the beginning of 2012, culminating either at Lockdown (mid April) or Slammiversary (mid June).

 

I have 2 basic scenarios in mind. One has the WCW invaders as faces, the other has the WCW invaders as heels.

 

Scenario 1:

Contrary to common invasion storylines in which the original workers are usually the faces and the invaders are the heels I want to actually use the WCW guys to 'save' the company from the reigns of Bischoff (with Jericho being the 'saviour', who else). This would probably mean that I don't turn Hogan face at BFG to let him side with Bischoff & Immortal.

 

Scenario 2:

Classic invasion storyline with the WCW guys coming in as heels, taking over the company. This could be set up by turning Hogan face at BFG (starting Hulkamania all over again, brother) and the break up of the Immortal stable. The heel WCW guys would battle the top TNA faces (AJ, Joe, Roode, Anderson, Hogan). Which side are Flair & Sting on???

 

 

Any ideas how to book that story??? My WCW guys at the moment are Chris Jericho, Cactus Jack (Foley), Chavo Guerrero, Fit Finlay and maybe Jim Cornette and/or Roddy Piper. Most of them are more accustomed to heel roles so that would favour the 2nd scenario. Maybe I'll bring in some more former WCW guys along the way...

[Mkelm44]

I haven't done a WCW Invasion in TNA, for the simple reason that all the WCW guys are now ancient, so they'd have to change the name of the show to "Low-Impact Wrestling" to accomodate it.

 

I have done a couple of games worth of the "original" Invasion in WWF 2001-02 and played around with it some. One thing I did which I thought worked out well was I basically set up two stables, one with the WCW Faces and the other with the Heels (Actually I set it up as WCW for the Faces and NWO for the Heels) with the WCW Faces invading first and the NWO heels coming in later. This helped keep the booking straight for me as well as it set it up nicely for a later WCW-Brand show. It also added more dynamics for turns as people could not only defect brands, but be recruited in and out of groups. Within reason I found that Main Event "salvation/fall" angles were great for the product, when someone saw the light and joined the WCW group or the falled from grace and joined NWO.

 

If you wanted to think about it in a kayfabe sense, you could have a WCW face group of say Jericho/Flair/Sting/Piper/others take on a Hogan/Bischoff lead Immortal group with TNA wrestlers mixing and matching into the mix as they see fit (AJ Styles might team up with Jericho to take on Angle and Bully Ray of Immortal, then later a three way dance between Styles/Jericho/Angle for the TNA Championship. I figure somewhere along the way you get a shocking defection- FLAIR JOINS IMMORTAL (because that's what Flair does) to set up a rivalry or maybe a TNA guy joins WCW Face (say AJ Styles, since he decides that he started out in WCW, TNA guy Daniels joins Immortal because he wants another shot at Styles, Jeff Jarrett turns on Immortal and joins TNA because he remembers he never liked Hogan in the first place and started TNA, etc.

 

So bottom line is I find for Invasion angles not to think of it as two monolithic groups- Company 1 v. Company 2 but rather as several different factions fighting it out. If you remember the WCW invasion, one of any number of reasons it failed was that the WCW guys were all booked as heels, so there was no reason for the crowd to like them at all. Plus as far as booking could have gone, with the entire block as heels, there were limited things you could logically do with them (they're either all a bunch of chicken-stuff heels or a bunch of menacing world beaters, which when you're trying to lump in Booker T with Sean O'Haire with Billy Kidman doesn't quite take). With different factions they can have different personas and you can book them accordingly.

 

Hope this helps.

[juggaloninjalee]

I think you could use Hogan as part of WCW invading TNA. Since he lost his spot as the authority figure to Sting at BFG he is so mad he leads a band of WCW invaders into TNA. Eventually Hogan splits off from WCW to reform the nWo though. Then Sting bands with WCW against the nWo while Jarrett is running TNA.

[Stennick]

Its your game do what you want but I have no idea who you would have from WCW invade that wasn't irrelevant or old. Jericho but anybody that would be interested in Jericho knows that he hated his time in WCW and hated the company in general. So it would be strange for him to take up the mantle on behalf of a company he absolutely hated and has talked extensively about hating since he left there eleven years ago. Having guys like Finlay, Chavo, Roddy Piper and Jim Cornette come in isn't going to do much.

 

As far as how to do it though? If someone held a gun to my head and said "book a WCW invasion of TNA" I would politely ask them to pull the trigger.

 

But anyway my best grab is that Bischoff backstabs Hogan at BFG taking control of the company for himself. Maybe at BFG he says "Hulk look you're dealing with a mad man out there. If you get injured or worse half the company is out there for anyone to take it. Give me temp control". Of course then during the match have someone take out Hogan and Sting. Then have Bischoff and this mystery guy celebrate.

 

The next night Bischoff explains that WCW was supposed to be his. Completely his, no more vice president, no more, seven word titles. He would simply be called OWNER. He didn't lose the war he was relieved of his duties in mid battle. He went to the WWE where he was tossed in a trash can, where he had to smile every day and pretend like he gave a damn just so that his family could continue to afford to live in the giant homes and drive the fancy cars they were accustomed to. When the WWE threw him in the trash literally he was done. He was making energy drinks and bad reality tv shows. TNA called and at first he wanted nothing to do with them. But then he saw the bigger pitcture. He saw this place being ran by a WOMAN, a woman in HIS business? The business he MADE what it is today? Thats when it dawned on him that TNA is WCW. That TNA's tv deal should be WCW's. That TNA's financial backers should have been WCW's. But WCW was dead....or was it? Now that he has COMPLETE control, no Carters, no Hogans, nobody but HIM he's going to show the world the Rebirth of WCW, HIS WCW!

 

etc etc etc. its convulsive but if you're trying to make it work within current storylines it works as well as anything.

[juggaloninjalee]

Its your game do what you want but I have no idea who you would have from WCW invade that wasn't irrelevant or old. Jericho but anybody that would be interested in Jericho knows that he hated his time in WCW and hated the company in general. So it would be strange for him to take up the mantle on behalf of a company he absolutely hated and has talked extensively about hating since he left there eleven years ago. Having guys like Finlay, Chavo, Roddy Piper and Jim Cornette come in isn't going to do much.

 

As far as how to do it though? If someone held a gun to my head and said "book a WCW invasion of TNA" I would politely ask them to pull the trigger.

 

But anyway my best grab is that Bischoff backstabs Hogan at BFG taking control of the company for himself. Maybe at BFG he says "Hulk look you're dealing with a mad man out there. If you get injured or worse half the company is out there for anyone to take it. Give me temp control". Of course then during the match have someone take out Hogan and Sting. Then have Bischoff and this mystery guy celebrate.

 

The next night Bischoff explains that WCW was supposed to be his. Completely his, no more vice president, no more, seven word titles. He would simply be called OWNER. He didn't lose the war he was relieved of his duties in mid battle. He went to the WWE where he was tossed in a trash can, where he had to smile every day and pretend like he gave a damn just so that his family could continue to afford to live in the giant homes and drive the fancy cars they were accustomed to. When the WWE threw him in the trash literally he was done. He was making energy drinks and bad reality tv shows. TNA called and at first he wanted nothing to do with them. But then he saw the bigger pitcture. He saw this place being ran by a WOMAN, a woman in HIS business? The business he MADE what it is today? Thats when it dawned on him that TNA is WCW. That TNA's tv deal should be WCW's. That TNA's financial backers should have been WCW's. But WCW was dead....or was it? Now that he has COMPLETE control, no Carters, no Hogans, nobody but HIM he's going to show the world the Rebirth of WCW, HIS WCW!

 

etc etc etc. its convulsive but if you're trying to make it work within current storylines it works as well as anything.

 

Jericho has stated he hated his time there but has also said if he knew how much it sold for then he would have purchased it. So why not say that he and Foley ponied up and paid for the rights? Its a huge stretch but who cares if it is truly realistic. The idea of WCW invading TNA is completely unrealistic and would never happen ever.

 

I do like your idea for how Bischoff is bringing WCW back to life in a sense. He could just try to change TNA's name to Championship Wrestling instead of World Championship Wrestling too.

[sheepy]

A WCW invasion of the old school icons coming in to rid TNA of the ills of Hogan, Russo & Bischoff who killed WCW would work (though haven't TNA spent the last year doing something like this anyway???)

 

You could have Jericho come in as the face of the guys who were held down, standing up for the TNA guys saying this ain't gonna happen again.

 

Sting, Flair etc join Jericho but come up short. At this point your TNA guys, eg Fortune, go ballistic, running Russo, Bischoff & Hogan out the promotion.

 

That way:

 

a) you can have the payoff of that trio getting their karma for "destroying" WCW.

b) some of the old school WCW guys like Jericho who were so instrumental in the rise of WCW getting their feel good moment once TNA is "saved"

c) your TNA stars look f'ing golden, finally ridding TNA of the establishment and get the rub of doing what Sting, Flair etc couldn't do.

 

Note - I don't believe Bischoff, Russo, Hogan etc were responsible for killing WCW in the way this story would have to portray them as in order for it to work.

 

The problem you have is that Hogan, Russo and Bischoff can't step in the ring. They could idolise Angle, saying if he'd have signed with them things would have been difficult but it's a hard sell.

[shamelessposer]

WCW invading TNA is like England invading London.

 

With an army of old people.