Matt Hardy Recalls The Backstage Reaction to ECW and WCW Closing, Adding ECW Into Invasion Angle

One of the most memorable eras of wrestling saw the closing of ECW and sale of WCW followed by the Invasion angle, and Matt Hardy looked back at that period on his latest podcast. ECW and WCW famously closed down in quick succession, as ECW folded in late March/early April shortly after WWE bought WCW. WWE attempted to run their “Invasion” storyline, wherein WCW stars came into WWE due to the purchase and, after some floundering of the storyline, ECW stars joined WCW as part of the “Alliance” in an attempt to destroy WWE.

Hardy spoke with Jon Alba about that era on the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, discussing how the reaction backstage was pretty universally negative to the closure of ECW and WCW. He also talked about how adding ECW to the Invasion did help the angle, though there were still many problems. You can check out the highlights below:

On the closing of ECW & sale of WCW: “Man, everybody in the WWE hated it. I mean, we know it wasn’t good for the industry, we knew it wasn’t good for the talent. We knew it was gonna take away a lot of our leverage as far as trying to get better deals or trying to get more money. So we hated to see the competition go under. And obviously, we bought WCW and then ECW went under. So it was what it was, but we were not fond of it, none of the WWE talent was.”

On adding ECW to WCW in the Invasion angle: “I thought it was okay. Considering it was — I hated the way the Invasion was played, where WCW didn’t have its own show, it didn’t have its own platform. And WCW guys were constantly on WWE programming. There was a point where every match was like WWE vs. WCW. And I feel like it never had the feel of the dream feud or dream program that it should have had.

“And I feel like adding and injecting ECW into the mix and into the Alliance, it made it more interesting for sure. Was it done perfectly? No, it wasn’t because it would have been much better if people that would have been viewing this whole program went, ‘Oh wow, these are all different entities. There’s WWE, and they’re taking on WCW along with ECW. but it really just seemed like now WCW and ECW were part of WWE. And I think it just watered it down so, so much and took away so much of the dream appeal.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.