The second part of the WCW venom into industry popularity was that the WWF found themselves lumbered with the remnants of a toxic brand. They had bought the assets and numerous WCW contracts but most of these were tainted goods. What can you really do with a Buff Bagwell? To compound this the WWF then made their own mistakes in how they booked the few valuable WCW commodities. Raw very quickly turned into an absolute cluster, too many characters, too many stories, too much of it illogical. The entire atmosphere became confused and fans didn't know what to make of it. Vince's thought process was too simplistic, he simply went about burying the WCW name and value. The company did an impressive buyrate of 700,000 for the Invasion PPV, which proved fans did want to see WCW vs WWF, but ultimately over time the fans switched off. By the end of 2001 the WWF had lost its "cool" factor. The March to December odyssey of WCW in WWF was undoubtedly a contributing factor, a narrative which ultimately made fans lose the plot and switch off.
