InVasion - Gund Arena, Cleveland Ohio,

July 22nd, 2001

The battle lines have been drawn! The one and only InVasion PPV. I’m not sure why the V is capitalised but that’s the styling they’re going for - the entrance ramp is a big V too. It’s actually quite cool as it allows for separate entrance ramps for the two rival locker rooms and leaves a pit in the middle (which we’ll see later in the show) so maybe I just answered my own question.

The video package focuses on war, which might be tasteless? The WWE Network has this show’s theme song dubbed but in real time the theme for this PPV was Marilyn Manson’s “Fight Song” which if you recall my Backlash coverage was also the song for the Two Man Power Trip’s sizzle reel (montage of chair shots). This is around the time that the WWF would always make an effort to have a big song as the theme song for each PPV. I’d imagine most will be missing from the WWE Network versions of the shows but I’ll do my best to link them where I can.

Commentary is handled by Jim Ross and Michael Cole who’ve called every show since Paul Heyman and Tazz both jumped ship to ECW. 

There’s also a massive edit as we jump from the opening pyro to Mike Awesome and Lance Storm already being in the ring. I’m going to assume that’s due to editing out some music as well but it could be due to the legal issues around using the ECW name and brand (more on that later)

Edge and Christian (WWF) vs. Mike Awesome and Lance Storm (ECW)

Lance Storm tries to cut an opening promo but he’s cut off by Edge and Christian’s entrance. They surprisingly don’t cut a promo of their own making fun of Storm and Awesome - they did that enough during the build up.

It’s weird having Cole and JR on commentary together as they’re both straight play by play men. They do a good job talking about Storm and Awesome’s credentials and building them up to be something worthwhile.

Edge and Christian work to isolate Storm but as Christian tries a dive to the outside off Edge’s back he slips and hangs himself up in the ropes. That looked painful and the fans chant “you fucked up” at him. Poo Christian. He’s alright though.

Storm perseveres and after countering Christian and sending him ribs first into the ring post, he and Awesome isolate him and focus their assault on his ribs with kicks and a splash.

Awesome tries to set up one of his trademark moves - a powerbomb off the top rope - but Christian counters with a backdrop and makes the hot tag to the 2001 King of the Ring. Edge is on fire and after a string of near falls has Lance Storm beat with a small package, which Awesome and Christian reverse and then break up respectively. 

Storm leapfrog’ Edge’s spear attempt sending him into Awesome which was a cool spot but also isn’t enough.

Mike Awesome tries a powerbomb on Edge but Christian catches him with a Spear, Edge lands on top and that’s enough for the three count. The WWF drew first blood and went up 1-0 on tonight’s PPV.

I’m not sure when else I’ll get the chance so let's talk about Mike Awesome. He was a big deal in Japan and then ECW and Paul Heyman promoted him as a top guy. They struck a deal with WCW where some ECW talent would appear on WCW TV in order to promote their next PPV and so Mike Awesome - the ECW Champion at the time did just that. The problem was, WCW didn’t promote the ECW PPV as promised during his appearance so Heyman felt double crossed. That then led to Mike Awesome leaving ECW and signing with WCW…while still the ECW Champion. It took a court injunction to stop Awesome from symbolically throwing the ECW title belt in the trash on live TV. You might remember that in April of 2000, Tazz showed up on Smackdown as the ECW Champion and lost to Triple H? That was part of the same deal as Vince McMahon - friends with Heyman - loaned him Tazz to correct the issue and Heyman loved the idea of a WWF wrestler beating a WCW wrestler for the ECW title. It was all pretty weird and unpleasant and caused a lot of bitterness and anger towards Awesome from the ECW fans and talent alike. So it’s quite funny to see him during the Invasion proudly waving the ECW flag once again.

Backstage Vince McMahon loudly celebrates Edge and Christian’s victory (including mimicking their 5 second pose which made me laugh) and is joined by Commissioner William Regal. He tells him that Stone Cold Steve Austin and Debra have arrived, and Vince says they should give them some space given what happened to Debra at the end of Smackdown. During this they also reveal another match for tonight - Regal takes on ECW’s Raven.

Earl Hebner (w/WWF Referees) (WWF) vs. Nick Patrick (w/WCW Referees) (WCW)

Special Guest Referee: Mick Foley

This match gets an honest to God video package!

Michael Cole also mentioned earlier that all the referee assignments for the matches tonight were decided by coin flip earlier today, with everyone agreeing to call the matches fair and square. But wait, why is Mick Foley here? Well it’s news to me too (not really though as I’ve seen this PPV before, duh) but he showed up right at the end of Sunday Night Heat to reveal he’d be calling this match. He worked in ECW, WCW and of course the WWF in his career so in theory he can be impartial. 

Nick Patrick enters first flanked by three other WCW referees (Brian Hebner, Billy Silverman and Charles Robinson, since you asked). Earl has a few more WWF referees with him. This obviously isn’t a "match" but they try their best.

I’ve made it clear how much I hate Earl Hebner since I started writing about these shows. He bugs me to a level which isn’t entirely healthy. His insistence on always staying on camera, ruining big moments and getting in the wrestler’s way is the opposite of what a good referee should do. He’s dreadful.

They trade blows and Earl is knocked outside. We get the first “Foley” chant as he goes to stop any of the other referees from getting involved.

Mick Foley ends up ejecting the WCW referees from ringside and as Nick Patrick protests, Earl hits him with an ugly spear/shoulder tackle and covers him to “win” this “match”. That gives the WWF a 2-0 lead tonight so far.

The WWF referees help a sore and bashed Earl to the back as Nick Patrick gets in Mick Foley’s face and criticises his officiating. He gets punched in the face and a Mr. Socko mandible claw for his troubles.

After a recap of DDP abducting Debra on Smackdown, we see Debra and Sara - Stone Cold and Undertaker’s wifes respectively - getting coffee and discussing their shared hatred of Diamond Dallas Page. Debra tells us that Page ended up just abandoning the car with her in it and they both look forward to their husbands making him pay tonight.

WWF Tag Team Champions The APA (Bradshaw and Faarooq) (WWF) vs. WCW Tag Team Champions Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo (WCW)

This match gets a video package which is cool as there was more build and developments for it on Sunday Night Heat which I didn’t get to see.

I really wanted to get a good shot of Palumbo and O'Haire with their WCW Tag Team title belts but they take them off and immediately run to the ring so this is the best I could do! 

Bradshaw and Faarooq have been positioned as the men leading the charge and rallying the WWF troops since this Invasion started. Neither set of titles is on the line in this match, and I really like O’Haire and Palumbo’s theme music. They rush the ring and start this match fast. 

There’s no real rhyme or reason to this match as the two teams tag in and out and take turns hitting moves on each other and barely selling. The fact is that the APA were famous for being locker room bullies and for treating newcomers from rival companies pretty poorly as a way of “welcoming” them to the WWF so a lot of their on screen dislike of WCW was probably real. Bradshaw is very very stiff with his punches and kicks to these two young men.

The match does break down as thanks to a cheap shot from O’Haire, Palumbo is able to isolate Faaooq in their corner for a few minutes.

He rallies with a spinebuster and hot-tags to Bradshaw who throws the massive Palumbo around like he weighs nothing.

There’s a little chaos with superkicks and Faarooq being put down but with a Clothesline from Hell, Bradshaw pins Palumbo to give the WWF a 3 - 0 advantage in matches here tonight.

O’Haire and Palumbo are both really young here, huge and muscular - the exact kinds of guys that Vince would love to push normally. They were graduates of WCW’s Power Plant which was their training facility but the most famous graduate was Bill Goldberg who sadly is not part of this Invasion. 

In Mr. McMahon’s office he and Chris Jericho talk about the success of the WWF so far tonight and make fun of Paul Heyman’s appearance. This is pretty pointless but it lets McMahon say Jericho’s catchphrases to remind us all that he’s a babyface now.

Elsewhere, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley rants about how much she hates Chris Jericho, and Shane McMahon and Paul Heyman hype up the WCW Cruiserweight Champion Billy Kidman. They NEED him to beat X-Pac tonight. He tells them to relax - he’s going to show us all why X-Pac sucks.

WWF Light Heavyweight Champion X-Pac (WWF) vs. WCW Cruiserweight Champion Billy Kidman (WCW)

It’s funny that they’ve been so meticulous about editing Marylin Manson off this PPV due to copyright as they obviously missed this one - X-Pac has his Uncle Kracker theme! He’s always had it, it's just usually dubbed out. 

Kidman’s theme is a bass heavy instrumental and I think it's cool as hell. It’s nice to see him in actual ring gear tonight and not his jean shorts and white vest combo.

This match starts fast and these two men work very smoothly together - X-Pac is a former WCW Cruiserweight Champion as well. They trade heel kicks and mat wrestle, followed by a fast back and forth off the ropes with Kidman boosting up into a hurricanana and then baseball sliding into a bulldog on the outside which looked really cool. Kidman is very good in the ring which makes me sad as (spoilers) we won’t see much more of him during the Invasion.

Despite JR telling us that this partisan WWF crowd would cheer X-Pac tonight, he gets his usual boos and “X-Pac sucks” chants. 

X-Pac slows things down with a near fall after a heel kick, a sleeper and a back suplex but misses his big flipping senton off the top rope.

Kidman rallies with some kicks of his own and counters what looked like an attempted powerbomb into a face buster which looked a lot like an X-Factor for a near fall.

Kidman tries his own dive off the top but X-Pac turns that into an X-Factor. I was sure that would be it but Kidman kicks out! He blocks X-Pac’s attempted Bronco Buster with a low kick and finishes with his awesome looking Shooting Star Press which pops the crowd, as well as JR and Michael Cole! That gives WCW/ECW their first win tonight on PPV bringing the score to 3 - 1.

In the WCW/ECW locker room, DDP arrives to celebrate with the McMahon kids and Paul Heyman. He want to talk about Debra and Sara - Stephanie looks visibly disgusted - but Shane changes the subject to how he needs to focus on the main event.

Torrie Wilson and Stacey Kieber talk about tonight’s bra and panties tag team match and say that it's a shame the fans will have to settle for seeing Trish and Lita in their underwear and not their far superior bodies. This reeks of being written by Vince McMahon. No woman under 70 years old calls her own breasts voluptuous. They say that they’ll give a private show to Matt and Jeff Hardy who “clearly want us”.

William Regal (WWF) vs. Raven (ECW)

This match was set up earlier tonight on Sunday Night Heat. There’s a really noticeable and obvious audio edit as the music goes near silent and Michael Cole’s mechanical “I recorded this in a studio after the fact” voice comes through very loudly. He says nothing of note.

I have almost nothing to say about this match as the two of them trade rest holds in front of a crowd who boos and chants “boring”. Raven does debut his dreadlocks look here which I always thought was pretty ugly.

The referee goes down and Tazz runs to the ring and supelxes Regal across the ring, allowing Raven to follow up with a DDT for a tainted victory. That moves the score up to 3 - 2 on the PPV.

In The Undertaker and Kane’s locker room, Mr. McMahon walks in and tries to fire them up. He overdoes it when talking about DDP having tapes of Sara and what he did to the Deadman’s wife so he grabs him by the throat and shoves him up against the wall menacingly. I don’t think he needs any firing up.

“The One” Billy Gunn, The Big Show and WWF Intercontinental Champion Albert (WWF) vs. Chris Kanyon, Hugh Morrus and Shawn Staziak (WCW)

This is another match which was added to the show earlier tonight on Heat. There might be no one in the WWF who’s had a bigger fall from grace than Big Show. He was WWF Champion and main evented Wrestlemania. They’ve turned that into a storyline as he and Billy Gunn have formed an angry “we’re underappreciated” tag team. Their opponents are three WCW midcarders - we’ve seen Shawn Staziak on PPV once before at the 1999 Survivor Series. They come out to Mr. Perfect’s old theme which is odd.

They start off with the three WWF superstars lifting all three opponents over their heads in a cool visual before it breaks down into a straight up tag match.

Kanyon is the most talented of the three WCW guys in this match but it was Hugh Morrus who spent years working behind the scenes for WWE as their head of development in the 2010s. He was eventually removed due to some misconduct allegations and replaced by…Albert. Isn’t that a funny coincidence? It actually occurs to me that he’s the only person in this match who still works for WWE in any capacity.

The match breaks down and Albert has Staziak (the fans chant “Meat” at him) beat with a Baldo Bomb but it's broken up by Morrus.

Billy hits a Fameasser on Morrus and then sets up for the One and Only but a reverse DDT from Staziak gives the WCW team the victory. 

Sore loser Big Show gets into the ring and spikes Shawn and Hugh with massive chokeslams before “the allyoop” reverse powerbomb on Kanyon (it didn’t catch on). WCW even the score to 3 - 3, but don’t look like winners as the WWF team stand tall.

Backstage as Shane McMahon helps WCW Champion Booker T polish his World and US titles, he says the score is actually 4 - 3 in WCW/ECW’s favour as earlier tonight on Heat WCW’s Chavo Guerrero beat the WWF’s Scotty 2 Hotty. These two are fun together as they pump each other up and psyche each other up. Booker says that he “owns those suckas!”

In the Commissioner’s office, Regal gets Tajiri fired up and tells him to beat “that miserable little gobshite Tazz”. That made it past the censors as presumably the Americans don’t know gobshite is a swear word. 

Tajiri (WWF) vs. Tazz (ECW)

Tajiri is SO popular! This is what happens when you do comedy in wrestling and its actually funny. It helps that he’s so smooth and polished in the ring. I can’t say enough good things about Tajiri.

Michael Cole spends this match being equal parts sad and angry about Tazz’s betrayal of the WWF and takes the opportunity to talk about Paul Heyman’s ability to manipulate and control people. 

Tajiri lights Tazz up with chops and kicks but with an overhead belly to belly suplex Tazz takes control and grinds the Japanese Buzzsaw down with submissions. 

Tajiri fights back with a tarantula hold in the ropes and then a running drop kick into Tazz’s face as he’s on his knees for a close near fall.

Tazz throws Tajiri across the ring with a submission but as he goes to follow up, Tajiri blows his green mist into Tazz’ face! He follows with a big swinging kick to the head and Tajiri beats Tazz thanks to his green mist!

In the back as Matt Hardy gives Jeff a pep talk ahead of his title defence, Rob Van Dam runs in and cracks Matt across the back with a steel chair! “You’re next Jeff!” The European Champion has been left laying.

At WWF New York, Hardcore Holly is doing an autograph signing and when he spots a fan/plant in a WCW t-shirt, he rips it off his body and chases him out of there to the delight of the crowd.

WWF Hardcore Championship

Jeff Hardy © (WWF) vs. Rob Van Dam (ECW)

This is the only title match tonight. Rob Van Dam was/is easily the most popular man in ECW and the fans give him a loud “RVD” chant as soon as the match begins.

These two have similar styles in that they’re highflyers who like to use creative offence. They show that off right away with Jeff folding RVD up in a unique roll up, and RVD ducking a standing crossbody and seamlessly following with a standing moonsault for a near fall, followed by Rolling Thunder - Van Dam forward rolls to build momentum and without stopping continues into a second flip landing back first across his opponent. Always thought it looked great. Van Dam goes for a springboard but it's blocked and Jeff shoves him off the top and all the way to the security wall, but when he tries to do his trademark running across the top of the barrier Van Dam jumps up and meets him halfway, sending him falling into the crowd. Van Dam gets an “ECW” chant with a moonsault off the wall to the concrete for another near fall out in the sea of people.

RVD continues with another trademark move, dropping Jeff across the security wall and then jumping from the apron onto Jeff with a turning heel kick to the spine. 

JR and Cole really sing Van Dam’s praises during this match and there’s another chant - “Holy shit” this time - as Jeff gives RVD a sunset flip powerbomb, splatting Van Dam’s spine on the outside. He gets his own trademark out - a giant 20 foot ladder - and climbs it but Van Dam isn’t in position for any kind of move so I’ve no idea what his plan was. He pays for it as RVD shoves the ladder over and Jeff rides it all the way down to a rough landing on the entrance ramp.

Jeff walks with a heavy limp (understandable) as they trade steel chair shots up the ramp until RVD counters with a spinning heel kick sending the chair back into Jeff’s face and him flying off the ramp and into the pit in the middle of the V shaped ramp (told you we’d see that later). 

Van Dam brings Jeff back to the ring and after a running dropkick with a chair in the corner, tries to follow with a split-legged moonsault but Jeff gets his knees up. 

Jeff sets up RVD and tries for his Swanton Bomb but Van Dam moves out of the way and then after laying the Hardcore title belt across Jeff’s chest finishes him with a Five Star Frog Splash to win the WWF Hardcore title in a great Hardcore match.

That gives us a score of 4 - 4 in matches on the PPV (5 - 4 on the night) and a victory in the only title match, bringing a WWF title to their Invading force.

Kurt Angle goes to see Mr. McMahon in another “he peps talks a Team WWF member” segment. I’d have thought this screen time was better served in building up the WCW and ECW guys, especially the ones we haven’t really gotten to know yet. Kurt is all fired up and pissed off and tells Vince to “cut the Americana bullshit” and promises to kick some ass tonight for his country, his company but mostly for himself. Serious Kurt! He gets a big babyface cheer from the crowd too.

Bra and Panties Tag Team match

Trish Stratus and Lita (WWF) vs. Torrie Wilson and Stacey Kiebler (WCW)

Special Guest Referee: Mick Foley

I don’t really want to talk about this one. It gets a video package and everything. So of the four matches to get a video package on this PPV, two of them were the nonsense matches with non-wrestlers involved.

I’m not a stick in the mud though, I love a non-wrestler spectacle match. I’m very much a story over workrate kind of wrestling fan but this stuff makes me cringe. It felt awkward watching it as a kid too - my mum and dad know I watch this stuff! 

Before the entrances, Mick Foley comes back out much to the surprise of everyone. JR and Michael Cole have a good laugh at what a “sly son of a gun” he is. The crowd reaction to these women is off as whatever theme Torrie and Stacey used respectively is heavily dubbed. 

All I can say is thank GOD Jerry Lawler isn’t around. JR does his best to bring the “light hearted pervert” vibes. 

I’m obviously not going to report on everything that happens during this match. It doesn’t matter. The four women scrap and brawl and take it in turns to pull at each other's clothing. This is very much the kind of match that if you’re interested in what happened you’re definitely better off watching it. In the “good old days” this would have been an Evening Gown match which is basically the same thing but I guess bra and panties sounds a little more 2001. 

Trish and Lita win (while both losing their tops only) which brings the all night total to 5 - 5 in favour of WCW/ECW. There is a funny moment as Trish and Lita leave as in their excitement, Lita almost falls into the pit in the middle of the entrance ramp and Trish saves her.

Backstage in the WCW/ECW locker room, Paul Heyman and Shane McMahon hype up Team WCW/ECW. They’re feral! They’re focused!

Elsewhere after having spoken to every other member of Team WWF, he finally sits down with Stone Cold Steve Austin! The WWF Champion is very much his old self as he says he doesn’t need a pep talk - he’s not here to sing or hug anybody, he’s here to whip somebody’s ass! And that's the bottom line cuz Stone Cold said so. That’s the first time he’s said that in a while. Heels don’t need catchphrases. 

Before we get to the main event, let's talk about the booking. 

What was supposed to happen? Well the plan was for WCW to exist as its own entity. That plan was what we got on the July 2nd Raw and the July 5th Smackdown - WCW vs. WCW matches and their own storylines and feuds. On the July 5th Smackdown we learned that on July 23rd the night after this PPV we’d find out about Vince and Linda’s “divorce settlement” and the plan was for on that Raw, Linda to reveal the WWF was being split in half and she would be taking over Smackdown. She’d then give that to her son Shane and he’d promote WCW shows there. The two brands would co-exist to allow for cross overs and WWF vs. WCW matches would take place on big stages. You can see the wheels turning for this in the first couple of weeks too as Booker T and Shane McMahon are presented as pure babyfaces - WCW was going to have its own feuds and storylines with its own heels and faces, rather than this “the whole company is a heel” approach.

What changed? That isn’t what happened for two reasons. Firstly, UPN which was the network that aired Smackdown wanted nothing to do with WCW. It was a dead brand which had very negative connotations to most wrestling fans by 2001. Secondly, after Booker T and Buff Bagwell’s pretty poor performance on the July 2nd Raw Vince McMahon decided that the WCW guys weren’t very good and no one would be interested in seeing them. Bagwell in particular was immediately released from his contract which is crazy in hindsight as behind Booker and DDP he was easily the most recognisable WCW talent they had access to. The idea to bring in ECW and turn the whole thing into a concentrated gang warfare WWF vs. WCW/ECW story that consumed the entire company was a last minute decision but it undeniably created an exciting couple of weeks of TV in the lead up to this PPV. They burned through about 4 months worth of storylines in a matter of two shows, and while Paul Heyman did his best to explain things the history between these companies and how significant this team up and subsequent Invasion was was only really apparent to those fans who already knew. I was 13 at the time and to me and my friends this was just a big “good guys vs. bad guys” company take-over storyline and lacked the gravitas they were going for (and it needed).

Where does that leave us? This show is loaded up with genuine WCW talents that came across in the company acquisition but as we’re about to see in the main event, most of those were phased out in short order to put focus on the various WWF stars who had “jumped ship”. I’ll talk about this more in future as the storylines unfold but don’t get too used to seeing people like Mike Awesome and Billy Kidman on PPV. The addition of ECW really gave Vince McMahon the excuse to move a bunch of talent he knew and trusted already (and the WWF fans recognised and would react to) like Tazz, Rhyno and The Dudleyz over to prop up the invading force. The “Invasion” quickly devolved into guys we’ve already seen wrestle before, wrestle again but in different t-shirts. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“The Inaugural Brawl” 10 Man Tag Team match

Team WWF (WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, Kane, The Undertaker and Kurt Angle) (w/Vince McMahon)
                                                                      VS.
Team WCW/ECW (WCW World and United States Champion Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno and The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley) (w/Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and Paul Heyman)

An awesome video package for this one but it's already easy to see why so many people consider the Invasion a flop and a failure as a storyline. This is THE moment, it’s WCW vs. WWF and yet the focus has shifted entirely to the McMahon family’s ongoing feud, and to Stone Cold Steve Austin. This already feels like it's more about ECW than WCW. I don’t want to be overly negative but it’s hard not to think about what could have been, and how much bigger and better this could have been.

This match alternates entrances which makes sense as having one entire team out there would leave the first member of the opposing team hopelessly outnumbered. Shane O’Mac is out first, followed by Heyman and Stephanie as the ECW management team. The Dudleyz are next, then Undertaker and Kane, Rhyno and then Chris Jericho, the WCW World and United States Champion Booker T (who should have been last for his team surely?)

Kurt Angle gets a huge babyface reaction from the crowd. People love this gear change for the Olympian. DDP enters last for Team WCW/ECW which does make sense as on paper, he’s the biggest name they got from WCW in the acquisition. I bet you could all guess who’d enter last before the participants were even official right? Undertaker rushes to attack DDP and as everyone starts to fight at ringside brawling up the ramp the glass shatters and Stone Cold Steve Austin sprints to the ring and joins the fighting! 

It would be fair to say that a lot of fans expected a debut or two on this event - everyone was still holding out hope we’d see Sting, Goldberg or the nWo but alas it was not to be.

The fighting on the outside continues until Austin gets Rhyno into the ring and the bell rings, starting the match officially and things settle down into a 5 on 5 tag team match. Austin dominates Rhyno with a Thez press, elbow drop and a superplex but his pin attempt is broken up so he tags out to Y2J. There’s a LOT of men in this match who all need to get their time and show off their moves so it’ll be a struggle to call all of it. The match continues with everyone tagging in and out when they get tired. The main points being that DDP gets plenty of offence in on The Undertaker before tagging out, and WWF Champion Stone Cold beats the senses out of WCW Champion Booker T in and out of the ring. 

Kurt Angle throws both Dudleyz around with suplexes but a cheap shot from Rhyno and a double team leads the Olympic hero isolated for a period. 

DDP takes a long beating including a Wazzup headbutt (minus the Wazzup) as DDP distracts the referee. 

DDP’s back and forth with Angle is pretty awkward. DDP was never a bad wrestler but he did famously like to lay out all his matches move for move beforehand and even practise them. It was effective in WCW as his big matches were always very good but I doubt there was time and enough cooperation from everyone in his WWF matches so far to achieve it. 

Angle tags in Stone Cold but the referee doesn’t see it and doesn’t allow it. That’s too much and tensions bubble over as all ten men start to brawl and fight in and out of the ring. Rhyno accidentally gives Booker T a Gore and it feels like this chaos is leading to the finish.

Undertaker plants DDP with a chokeslam in the middle of the ring and sets up a Last Ride but WCW referee Charles Robinson stops him. He takes a Last Ride instead for his troubles!

Undertaker fights with DDP and they disappear into the crowd and away from the ring. Back at ringside, Bubba and D-von double team Kane but most importantly on the far side Stone Cold seems to have hurt his knee - he has a one of the medical staff with him helping him take off his knee brace. Kane fights off both Dudleyz and plants D-Von through the announce table with a chokeslam! This is chaotic and hard to follow but with their table smashed neither JR nor Michael Cole have noticed that Stone Cold is hurt.

 Rhyno and Bubba Ray work together to suplex Kane through the other announce table, and then Jericho flies off the apron with a shoulder tackle which puts Rhyno through another table and takes them both out.

In the ring with most of the participants down, hurt or gone Bubba Ray and Booker T work on Kurt Angle two on one.

He fights back and with a flurry of suplexes drops Bubba with the Angle slam and locks Booker T in the ankle lock but he’s kicked into the WWF referee, knocking him down. With everyone down and no referee, the fans start chanting a mix of WCW names. Vince McMahon grabs the WWF title belt at ringside and throws it to Kurt to use as a weapon. It’s intercepted by Shane McMahon who knocks out his dad with the title belt. Kurt takes down Shane and drops Booker with an Angle slam and locks in the ankle lock! Booker taps out with no referee to see it, Austin grabs the referee to drag him back into the ring and and…attacks Kurt Angle!

He drops his own team mate with a Stone Cold Stunner and puts Booker T on top of him before forcing the referee to count! Booker T’s music plays in victory but he’s not the star here and so Austin’s music starts to play instead. He calls Shane, Stephanie and Heyman into the ring and none of them look shocked so it seems this was a premeditated plan. 

Austin stomps on Kurt and boots him out of the ring and celebrates in front of a crowd which is stunned silent. The WWF Champion has defected to WCW and will now lead the Invasion. JR screams himself hoarse about what a betrayal this is as he celebrates with beers with the WCW/ECW management team. The fans are silent and staring at the ring in shock. I’m not sure if they’re more disappointed in another Austin heel turn only a week after he went back to being the Old Stone Cold, or if the realisation has finally settled in that none of the real WCW main eventers are going to show up.