10 Fatal Mistakes Of WWE's 2001 Invasion

7. Not Acknowledging Austin’s History

Steve Austin joining The Alliance was a massive mistake. Austin was a WWF guy, and was the face of the company during their amazing run. But management felt WCW and ECW wasn’t enough of a threat, so they made The Rattlesnake turn, and then he lead the inferior talent into battle. It was a truly desperate move.

IF it had to be done (which, again, it should not have been), then at least they should have played into his history. Austin got his big break in WCW earlier in the 90s, before heading to ECW and then the WWF.

Maybe in the story he could have continued to have some sort of loyalty to them. Maybe now that Eric Bischoff was gone, he wanted to be the one to run the company. Mick Foley had a tremendous run in ECW, fawning over his old boss Bischoff. They could have gone down that route, but Austin's tenure was never mentioned.

Austin was in WCW for four years, he was a TV Champion, a US Champion, and had multiple runs with the tag belts. We were supposed to forget that. All it would have taken was a few video packages and some promos to establish a connection. This alone wouldn’t have saved the angle, but it at least would have made Austin’s turn feel a lot more genuine.