WWE buying WCW and ECW...

[The One]

I was thinking about what WWE purchasing out the other companies REALLY did for them. I mean honestly, at the point where they bought them, WCW was festering and posed absolutely NO threat to them what so ever, and ECW was 100% dead. Then I started to think about what them owning the libraries did for the careers of wrestler's there, and here's what I've concluded...

Rob Van Dam became the most expensive superstar of all time.
Seriously, the only videos they showed in terms of getting someone over was RVD's stuff. Because they bought ECW, RVD had a chance to parlay that into them making One Night Stand, which eventually lead to the idea of making the brand. And all of it was only approved so that RVD could have a platform to get over without them needing to feed him a single legit main eventer.

Ric Flair went from being a sad story of a former legend, to an Icon who will never die.
When WCW died, Flair was still respected, but he had been run down on camera so much by so many people, and let's face it, he was past his prime a decade before WCW went under. His second run in WWE did more to make him who history will remember him than anything else. If WWE didn't buy out WCW, I don't think WWE would have had any interest in bringing him in, but because they had him, and let's face it, nobody is better at hyping up historical significance than WWE. Plus, with the on again off again love affair with Hogan, I think WWE has done their best to give Flair Hogan's spot as the man who took wrestling mainstream.

The brand extension.
If they didn't buy them out, they wouldn't have been overflowing with talent causing this whole mess to begin with. End of story.

So there you have it, because Vince McMahon wanted to own everything and be undisputed god of the industry, it's lead to 1 man having a second chance to get over, 1 legend becoming an icon, and one of the worst executed decisions in wrestling history.