25 biggest pro wrestling ‘what ifs’ of the past 25 years

4. What if The Invasion angle had all the main players involved?

Oh, The Invasion. What a wonderful concept that just went horribly, horribly wrong. When Vince McMahon bought WCW in 2001, the idea that we would finally see all of the wrestlers that had spent years competing against one another in different companies under the same roof was just too much to handle. The Undertaker vs. Sting. Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Goldberg. The possibilities were endless. Unfortunately for wrestling fans, what we got was arguably the biggest missed opportunity in the history of the business.

The problem that arose was the contracts of the big WCW talent. They had guaranteed money and instead of choosing to come into WWE with a buyout, they just sat home and collected checks. I mean, it’s hard to blame anyone for taking a ton of money without working but to the fans, it was extremely disappointing. Yes, some guys like Booker T and DDP came in but there was no Sting. There was no Goldberg. There was no Hogan. In their place was Chuck Palumbo and with all due respect, that’s not going to put butts in the seats (here’s to you, Tony Schiavone).

So what we get is this invasion from some of the lower-level talent and that forces guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was fired from WCW (there was the ECW connection there that some forget about) to join The Alliance. And why would Kurt Angle jump ship? That one still doesn’t make sense to me. The whole thing lasted for a few months and thankfully ended at Survivor Series.

But what if Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Booker T, DDP and Ric Flair had all come in together to invade WWE? Can you imagine how amazing it would have been to see those guys in a ring at one time with Austin, The Rock, Kurt Angle, Triple H and The Undertaker? Given the tag teams and the cruiserweights and the hardcore stuff, you could have gotten years out of something like this. We did get some of the matches that we wanted to see (Hogan vs. The Rock, The Undertaker vs. Ric Flair) but it could have been so much more.