2026 Note
Retroactively labelling this as a RAW Byte entry, despite the fact that it has little to do with RAW.
And so after months of… whatever the fuck you want to call what we were watching on WWF television since June, this stupid Invasion angle finally came to an end, with the WWF team vanquishing the WCW/ECW Alliance team at Survivor Series, where the fate of both entities was determined by the remaining captains of both teams, The Rock (representing WWF) and Stone Cold Steve Austin (representing the Alliance.)
Both were contracted WWF wrestlers. Austin is the biggest draw in WWF history outside of, maybe, Hogan in his heydays. All the non-WWF guys were eliminated early so that the spotlight would stay on the WWF guys who had been there forever. This whole Invasion thing was a farce and I’m just happy that it’s over and done with.
So what happens the next night on RAW?
Jerry Lawler makes his return to the commentary table and dejects Paul Heyman. I guess he got over the Kat or whatever… I don’t know. I don’t care to know. All I know is that I’m going to miss Paul E. on commentary, but JR and the King back together ain’t a bad deal, either.
And then later that night in the main event segment, who should appear to great Vince McMahon in the ring but the one and only Nature Boy himself, Ric Flair… who was last seen jobbing to Sting on the final Nitro all the way back in March.
Oh, and Flair is apparently half-owner of the WWF with Vince because he bought Shane and Stephanie’s shares. Flair waited until this whole Invasion shit was done to finally appear on WWF television. I guess I can’t blame the guy. If I were Flair and I had seen how guys like Booker T or DDP were being portrayed on television during that debacle, I wouldn’t want anything to do with that shit, either. That was the right call on his part.
Still, though, I don’t know when the deal with Flair went through. So if they signed him recently, then fine. But if they’ve been sitting on him for months while they nuked this Invasion thing to oblivion…
Remember, the common reason given for WWF not signing all the big WCW names like Goldberg, Sting, Hogan, or the like (according to those in the know… or not, who even knows with this shit?) was to not disrupt the pay scale and the locker room culture. I would like to think that some of those guys were happy getting free money from Time Warner while their contracts were still running than go for a release to appear on WWF TV and be booked like absolute jokes.
After all, Vince needs members for his new club.
Anyway, that’s the end of the Invasion. Good riddance to all that. I’m wondering why you’d want to keep the Big Gold, though. That’s a WCW thing…
Oh well…
