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There were lots of issues with the Invasion. Not being able to get the WCW names was a big one. Even if you could buy out their contracts, top WWF guys would want pay-offs. Plus, Vince had conditioned his audience to believe that WCW sucked and went out of business because they sucked. The WWF audience was interested in the story, no doubt, but they weren’t all WCW fans, so there was an education issue. Then you also had it as a McMahon storyline, which I remember not even remotely buying into as a kid.
I don’t think you do it right away. You want authenticity, and the core of the story is that Vince owns WCW now. We know that. So if WCW comes back it’s got to be under his auspices. He’s either parading it around like a trophy or he ignores it completely, because who cares about WCW, right? You can bring in guys like Lance Storm, but they’re not WCW guys. No one believes that. They’re WWF guys that Vince has acquired the contracts of. Storm can be promoted by Regal as the guy to take the IC Title off Jericho. That’s easy and believable.
You make the WWF audience *care* about the WCW guys first. Mike Awesome can win the Hardcore Title off Kane. Shane Helms and Billy Kidman can pad out the Light Heavyweight Division. DDP and Kanyon can be a tag team. Whatever. Just don’t try and convince me they aren’t approved to be there.
Then, once the big names are free, that’s when you start bringing in WCW guys, as WWF guys, but obviously carrying the spirit. That’s when they start rebelling. Flair is the perfect instigator for it. He can convince Booker T to bring back his big gold belt. But hopefully he’d have been a little over in the WWF with the WWF crowd by now.
Have WCW bubble up. The guys from WCW jumping the rail as a siren blares is just not believable.
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