10 Times WWE Tried To Force Historic Moments
4. The Alliance's Last Stand
The Invasion should have been one of the most exciting angles in professional wrestling history, but it’ll instead go down as a huge missed opportunity. It started relatively strongly, but soon lost steam thanks to a lacklustre ECW/WCW talent roster and its dilution into nothing more than a glorified McMahon family feud, with the story losing most of its momentum by the time it was due to wrap up.
The end of WCW and ECW should’ve felt like a huge, symbolic moment, but it was a damp squib. While the Alliance vs. Team WWF “Winner Take All” match at Survivor Series 2001 was actually pretty good, 60% of the WCW/ECW side was comprised of WWF defectors and Shane McMahon, making it feel like Vince’s company was fighting against itself, rather than a sect of deadly invaders.
The WWF won, of course, and the moment had zero impact. The Alliance had been treated like a meek force throughout the Invasion, and after taking only a few significant blows across the storyline, WWE’s triumph felt routine rather than celebratory.
It definitely wasn’t the “battle for survival” that the company made it out to be, but while WWE tried to paint it as the ultimate victory over legitimately dangerous competition, the message was artificial.