10 Moments Vince McMahon Admitted Defeat With The Fans

9. WCW Raw

Younger readers, you read that right. In 2001, Vince McMahon did seriously consider turning Monday Night Raw into a WCW-exclusive, and numerous sources (including Bruce Prichard) have confirmed it. SmackDown would have been the WWF show, but the brand split idea, occurring almost a year before the 'soft' approach, was doomed to failure.

The final straw for McMahon came on the 2 July 2001 episode of Raw. There, Buff Bagwell and Booker T worked a WCW-style main event that bored the hell out of the partisan WWF audience. Though it wasn't quite as awful as Vince's subsequent reactions suggests it was, the match didn't bode well for WCW exclusivity.

Right then and there, McMahon changed his mind and (before the Invasion pay-per-view) began moving on from WCW as a brand.

The Invasion angle limped on until Survivor Series, but Vince was already looking past it and had admitted defeat on taking the ashes of WCW, shining them up and turning them into a positive part of his own pro wrestling monopoly.