Playaz Eyez
Veteran
WWF Invasion has been talked about a ton on here, so I won't go through a bunch of surrounding details with this thread. I'm mostly making this thread branching off the 'Ziggler and Rollins Are SHOOK' thread in regards to the crowd reaction they had in Pittsburgh.
Pinch of background first. This is 1 full week after WWF King of The Ring 2001, where Booker T showed up for the first time, interfering in the main event of Stone Cold vs Christ Benoit vs Chris Jericho match, interference which didn't even cost Stone Cold the match
(which could be it's own thread, but I'll just keep it at that).
So here we are, Booker T defending the WCW World championship against Buff Bagwell. The match was made because of either Steph or Linda saying WCW needs some type of representation (
we know they didn't really feel that way), but here it is, in Tacoma Washington. This is my second time watching this match, though it was only a couple years ago I watched it for the first time, as I didn't watch it when it originally aired. Took me so long to watch cause I had always heard how awful it was and how much it was panned by critics, but after watching it with fresh eyes today...ehhhhh, it wasn't THAT bad. Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson are the commentators. They're ok here trying to sell this as a huge deal (as it should have been), though Arn sounds like he took Nyquil beforehand. They have the WCW logos everywhere, a WCW referee, and fine ass Stacy Keibler doing the ring intros. Both Booker and Bagwell get good reactions here, and the crowd seems pretty pumped, but right when Bagwell blindsides Booker and the bell rings, they just flip a switch.
If you pay attention to the background, you can see chunks of fans just start heading towards the stands as if this is Curt Hawkins vs Apollo Crews today. Booker has quite a bit of pep in his step, but Bagwell looks slower than normal. It's not even 30 seconds in, and the crowd is shytting all over this match. The total match itself is less than 5 minutes (1 of various things wrong with the setup of a match that is supposed to be a big deal). The fans hit this match with "boring" and "This Match Sucks" chants throughout. I didn't think the match sucked, it was more basic than anything. Booker T was working hard and trying to will the crowd into it, but it was a lost cause, which is my main point of this thread. The WWF had spent years publicly making WCW look inferior (for our entertainment through competition), and by doing that, they set WCW up to fail from the beginning. How do you book two WCW wrestlers on the main event of Raw after you spent so money years trying to make WCW look like a joke??
The fans were conditioned to shyt on WCW like they were chumps, and there was no way the crowd was gonna respond differently, other than having a bigger WCW star face Booker T (who was very much THE man coming out of WCW). The WWF at that time had no one to blame but themselves for that reaction, just like this past Sunday at Extreme Rules. Sure, the Pittsburgh crowd has been trash for awhile, but that type of reaction wasn't overnight. That's from years of stop-start pushes, 50/50 booking, and pushing people who the fans clearly don't care about (Sheamus from 09-10, Jack Swagger at various times, and Alberto Del Rio after they stripped his cars, scarves, and Ricardo away from him are some of the biggest ones I can think of). And don't even get me started on HHH dismantling the roster from 2002-2007 and Cena washing tons of people from 2005-2013. The WWE stymied their own roster just cause they could, and cause they [somehow] still manage to make a profit.
To finish up with the match, Booker T hits the Scissors Kick, followed by a Spinaroonie, both of which draws a weird reaction, like the crowd was truly ready to lose their shyt and cheer, but couldn't help themselves due to that "WWF >>>> WCW" conditioning all those years, and just ramped up the boo'ing. Booker preps himself for the Book-End, but Kurt Angle and Stone Cold run in to interfere, kicking Booker's ass, and the match is over. Austin and Angle lay the boots to Booker, as does Bagwell, much to the surprise of Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson. The beatdown is pretty funny, cause it's like Austin and Angle (real life) don't want Bagwell to join in, as they on the sly keep moving Booker away to keep Bagwell from joining
All 3 finish beating up Booker backstage, then toss him outside. Bagwell is hyped and celebrating, then Austin and Angle just start wailing on Bagwell and dump him outside too 
If you're blaming anyone but the WWE and it's "creative" team for out today's crowds are, you're a goofy WWE mark
Pittsburgh being lackluster wasn't an overnight thing, it was due to years of lackluster programming. It was due to trying to get over a sloppy reckless Heidenreich, a boring as shyt Vladimir Kozlov (before turning him into a comedy act), Khali who could barely do his finisher without stumbling to the ground, various failed tag teams, having Michelle McCool cut promos every week, etc, ON TOP of HHH and Cena wrecking the roster. The WWE is more than 90% of the problem, and the fans that disagree make up the rest of the 100% 
Pinch of background first. This is 1 full week after WWF King of The Ring 2001, where Booker T showed up for the first time, interfering in the main event of Stone Cold vs Christ Benoit vs Chris Jericho match, interference which didn't even cost Stone Cold the match
(which could be it's own thread, but I'll just keep it at that).So here we are, Booker T defending the WCW World championship against Buff Bagwell. The match was made because of either Steph or Linda saying WCW needs some type of representation (
we know they didn't really feel that way), but here it is, in Tacoma Washington. This is my second time watching this match, though it was only a couple years ago I watched it for the first time, as I didn't watch it when it originally aired. Took me so long to watch cause I had always heard how awful it was and how much it was panned by critics, but after watching it with fresh eyes today...ehhhhh, it wasn't THAT bad. Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson are the commentators. They're ok here trying to sell this as a huge deal (as it should have been), though Arn sounds like he took Nyquil beforehand. They have the WCW logos everywhere, a WCW referee, and fine ass Stacy Keibler doing the ring intros. Both Booker and Bagwell get good reactions here, and the crowd seems pretty pumped, but right when Bagwell blindsides Booker and the bell rings, they just flip a switch.If you pay attention to the background, you can see chunks of fans just start heading towards the stands as if this is Curt Hawkins vs Apollo Crews today. Booker has quite a bit of pep in his step, but Bagwell looks slower than normal. It's not even 30 seconds in, and the crowd is shytting all over this match. The total match itself is less than 5 minutes (1 of various things wrong with the setup of a match that is supposed to be a big deal). The fans hit this match with "boring" and "This Match Sucks" chants throughout. I didn't think the match sucked, it was more basic than anything. Booker T was working hard and trying to will the crowd into it, but it was a lost cause, which is my main point of this thread. The WWF had spent years publicly making WCW look inferior (for our entertainment through competition), and by doing that, they set WCW up to fail from the beginning. How do you book two WCW wrestlers on the main event of Raw after you spent so money years trying to make WCW look like a joke??
The fans were conditioned to shyt on WCW like they were chumps, and there was no way the crowd was gonna respond differently, other than having a bigger WCW star face Booker T (who was very much THE man coming out of WCW). The WWF at that time had no one to blame but themselves for that reaction, just like this past Sunday at Extreme Rules. Sure, the Pittsburgh crowd has been trash for awhile, but that type of reaction wasn't overnight. That's from years of stop-start pushes, 50/50 booking, and pushing people who the fans clearly don't care about (Sheamus from 09-10, Jack Swagger at various times, and Alberto Del Rio after they stripped his cars, scarves, and Ricardo away from him are some of the biggest ones I can think of). And don't even get me started on HHH dismantling the roster from 2002-2007 and Cena washing tons of people from 2005-2013. The WWE stymied their own roster just cause they could, and cause they [somehow] still manage to make a profit.
To finish up with the match, Booker T hits the Scissors Kick, followed by a Spinaroonie, both of which draws a weird reaction, like the crowd was truly ready to lose their shyt and cheer, but couldn't help themselves due to that "WWF >>>> WCW" conditioning all those years, and just ramped up the boo'ing. Booker preps himself for the Book-End, but Kurt Angle and Stone Cold run in to interfere, kicking Booker's ass, and the match is over. Austin and Angle lay the boots to Booker, as does Bagwell, much to the surprise of Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson. The beatdown is pretty funny, cause it's like Austin and Angle (real life) don't want Bagwell to join in, as they on the sly keep moving Booker away to keep Bagwell from joining
All 3 finish beating up Booker backstage, then toss him outside. Bagwell is hyped and celebrating, then Austin and Angle just start wailing on Bagwell and dump him outside too If you're blaming anyone but the WWE and it's "creative" team for out today's crowds are, you're a goofy WWE mark
Pittsburgh being lackluster wasn't an overnight thing, it was due to years of lackluster programming. It was due to trying to get over a sloppy reckless Heidenreich, a boring as shyt Vladimir Kozlov (before turning him into a comedy act), Khali who could barely do his finisher without stumbling to the ground, various failed tag teams, having Michelle McCool cut promos every week, etc, ON TOP of HHH and Cena wrecking the roster. The WWE is more than 90% of the problem, and the fans that disagree make up the rest of the 100%
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