The Secret History Of WWE’s Ruthless Aggression Era | Wrestling Timelines
March 26, 2001 - The WWF Buys WCW
Cornette, who will become known years later as a relic completely detached from the pulse, is almost supernaturally prescient in 1999. When he pitches the formal developmental project, he stresses that “in five years’ time, we’re really gonna need [new main event stars]”.
WCW was struggling badly that summer; it would endure just one more before shuttering in March 2001. The story is complex and knotty enough to warrant a Timelines editorial of its own, but to condense it as briefly as possible:
The promotion was an institutional farce almost entirely incapable of creating new stars; even if it were capable, it was a political impossibility, given Hulk Hogan’s creative stranglehold over the product. By the time his influence waned, or he lost interest, the damage was done. It was probably irreversibly done before a certain ex-WWE head writer was hired. Vince Russo turned the TV product into a bizarre postmodern exercise - a TV show about a failing wrestling outfit only understood, barely, by hardcore fans. Hateful, deranged, and equally as vile as WWE’s Attitude Era, it was worthless and pointless. On an infamous simulcast, on March 26, it is revealed that Vince has purchased WWE - or has he?
In a twist, his son Shane is revealed as the new owner. Already, this thing is doomed as a vehicle for yet more McMahon melodrama as opposed to inter-promotional dream warfare.
An attempt will be made to present WCW and ECW as a unified invading force, but barely. The hope is irrational for several months, informing a staggering buy amount of 775,000 for the first and only InVasion pay-per-view on July 22 - but Vince McMahon very obviously cares little about taking it seriously. Why would the WWF lose?
We won!