7 Cruelest Wrestling Ironies

7. The McMahon Family Handle WCW Worse Than Previous Owners

By the year 2001, World Championship Wrestling had become such a shameful shambles that it almost felt like a mercy killing when the group went out of business. The previous power man behind the organisation, Ted Turner, had long since lost sway in his own empire, which meant it was a non-wrestling fan TV executive who booted WCW off the air. When Jamie Kellner did so, he seemed to indirectly decrease the value of the promotion.

Vince McMahon was watching, and he was able to swallow up 24 talent contracts as well as trademarks and rights for the paltry fee of $2.5 million. 

Without a television deal, it wasn't worth too much more. In effect, WCW was now McMahon's, and he could do with it what he wished. Sadly for those who had long followed the promotion, Vince chose to completely undermine it under the then-WWF umbrella. The 'Invasion' angle has become known as one of the worst uses of the WCW name in history, and that includes some of the awful tripe the company itself were presenting between 1999-2001.

Top stars like Diamond Dallas Page were immediately made to look like chumps, and more established WWF names like Steve Austin and Kurt Angle were hurriedly switched to the WCW side to shore it up. Rather ironically, the McMahon clan had somehow managed to repel the WCW fan base entirely, one which had sat through some terrible television yet still harboured hope that Vince would be able to put some shine on it. 

He wasn't.