20 Days That Changed WWE Forever
7. 23 March 2001 - Vince McMahon Buys WCW
The year 2000 proved to be record-setting for both the WWF and WCW - in the former case, the company had the most profitable year a wrestling organization had ever registered, and in the latter, the company lost more money in twelve months than one ever would. Given that - and that the WWF's dominance showed no signs of slowing down - it wasn't surprising that WCW went up for sale.
What was surprising, though, was that Nitro and Thunder were canceled by TNT and TBS, respectively, Fusient Media Ventures (with Eric Bischoff at the helm) pulled out of a deal to buy WCW, and Vince McMahon ended up purchasing the company for a song. The deal was signed and announced on 23 March 2001, with a simple message on WWF.com - "WWF buys WCW."
For the first time, fans would get to see the stars of their two favorite organizations face off - dream matches would be booked and questions would be answered. The ensuing Invasion storyline, though, was a mess - the WWF refused to shell out money to buy the contracts of WCW's top stars, and the WCW wrestlers they did get were booked to look inferior to their WWF counterparts. The whole storyline was over in six months, WCW's existing fanbase was run off, and it effectively ended the Attitude Era's wrestling boom.