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Vince Russo Details The Pitch He Made to Vince McMahon in 2002 For A Second WCW Invasion Angle

May 19, 2019 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Vince McMahon Shane McMahon WWE WCW Image Credit: WWE

– Vince Russo said on the latest Truth with Consequences that he pitched a new Invasion angle to Vince McMahon in 2002. The Invasion angle is perhaps one of WWE’s most infamous failures, occurring after WWE bought WCW and ECW. The whole thing culminated in a WCW and ECW vs. WWE match at Survivor Series 2001, which saw WWE win the war and put the WCW and ECW names to rest.

There was a plan at the time for WCW to be run as a separate brand, but as Chris Jericho and Dave Meltzer recently discussed, that idea was killed after the poor reaction to a Buff Bagwell vs. Booker T match on Raw. Russo says he pitched a potential return of the storyline when he returned to the company in 2002, and revealed what his pitch was. Highlights are below:

On building the whole Invasion pitch around Eric Bischoff: “Bro, my whole premise was built around Eric Bischoff. Who, everybody knows, we don’t get along as human beings. Eric Bischoff is one of the best performers of all-time. Period, end of story. So I wasn’t looking at it from a personal level when I had my meetings with Vince. I was looking at it from a professional level. And Eric was not on TV, Eric was not working for the WWE. None of that had taken place, and my pitch to Vince was, ‘Bro, you’ve gotta bring Eric in here. You have to hire Eric.'”

On how he envisioned the storyline: “And bro, the whole idea was like, Vince was gonna kind of be Vince, and kind of punish Eric and embarrass Eric. And Eric was gonna take it, because Eric was gonna be working him. And Eric was gonna take it, and Eric was gonna eat s**t, and Eric was gonna eat crow. And as this was happening now, Vince was kind of starting to get enlightened by Eric. So Eric’s working Vince, bro, and Vince is starting to respect Eric, okay? In the meantime, Shane smells a rat. And Shane’s like, ‘Dad.’ Shane’s telling him, ‘This freaking guy’s working you, bro. He’s working you.’ And Vince is writing that off by saying, ‘Shane, you’re jealous. Get over it, bro. You’re my freaking son. You’re gonna be jealous of Eric Bischoff?’ And sure enough, bro, Eric would work his magic and one-by-one convince Vince, ‘Vince, bro, listen man. Booker T’s a real good guy. I know you maybe don’t know much about him. Bro, take my word. Sign him to a one-year deal.’ One by one, Eric would be bringing these guys back. And before you know it, everything’s in place for Eric to now do a WCW takeover in house. Meanwhile, Shane had been warning Vince all along, telling Vince what was going on. Vince is getting hot at Shane because that was the whole foundation of the angle. And keep in mind, bro, this is before Eric was hired, before there was any communication of Eric being hired. That triangle between Vince, Shane and Eric was going to be the foundation.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Truth With Consequences with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.