10 Most Damaging WWE Defeats

Many of the big dream matches promised by the collapse of WCW in 2001 ended up eluding us: we never got Stone Cold versus Hulk Hogan, for example, neither Undertaker versus Sting. We did, however, get The Rock versus Booker T, an encounter which pitted against each other two of the brightest young stars to emerge from the Attitude Era.

The feud began rather inauspiciously - at least if you were Booker. His arrival in WWE was greeted by derision from the Great One, who claimed that he had never heard of the man who had swept up titles left and right down in Atlanta. In one way, it was just was classic Rock - but it was also significant when you realised what was to come.

Booker's subsequent defeat at SummerSlam was a death knell not just for the five-time WCW Champion - whose status as a pretender was essentially confirmed - but for the Invasion angle as a whole. Both of wrestling's World titles were now on the arms of WWF stars (even if Austin was now flirting with the other side).

It was symptomatic of exactly what was wrong with the entire storyline. It was simply too one-sided, Vince McMahon apparently too proud to allow any of his biggest assets to suffer high profile defeats against a group of wrestlers he regarded as inferior.

Under these constraints, The Alliance never stood a chance of looking like a credible threat.