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THE 2001 SERIES, PART 5: WWF MONDAY NITRO AND THE FORMATION OF THE ALLIANCE

The WWF was at an all-time high coming off the WCW purchase and Wrestlemania X-7 in consecutive weeks, and once the initial glow had worn off they began working on rebuilding the WCW brand from the ground up. The original plan had been to spin it off into a completely separate company with its own TV show and PPV schedule, but they found themselves unable to get a TV deal for WCW. Viacom (on whose TNN network Monday Night Raw had been for several months by that time) rejected the idea of adding another wrestling show to their lineup, USA wasn't interested either, and wrestling had just gotten booted off the Turner networks, which is how WCW wound up in the hands of the McMahons to begin with.

Another problem facing the WCW relaunch was the talent roster: the WWF had signed a moderately large group of former WCW wrestlers, but the only main eventers to make the jump were Diamond Dallas Page and WCW World/US Champion Booker T, and the rest were midcarders at best. Other former WCW headliners like Scott Steiner, Bill Goldberg, and Ric Flair were still being paid by AOL-Time Warner and the WWF chose not to buy out their contracts. While DDP and Booker were certainly name WCW guys who didn't fall into the category of "old guard" main eventers that the WCW fans had despised, the fact is that they were just two guys amongst a company whose major problem had always been that it never elevated young talent.

With all the major cable channels out of the running and no other viable options presenting themselves, as well as a talent roster that wasn't in a position to draw on its own, the WWF decided to try a different approach. They would give WCW a soft launch, alloting the WCW brand time on Monday Night Raw to present WCW matches with WCW referees and WCW announcers. It wasn't ideal, but it was a way for them to get WCW back off the ground and see where it would go from there. The first edition of what you might call WWF Monday Nitro made its debut on the first Raw of July, and had been built to by having WCW wrestlers gradually integrate into the WWF universe (not to be confused with the WWE Universe). It began with midcarders running in and sneak attacking WWF wrestlers during matches, and before you knew it you had Mike Awesome winning the WWF Hardcore Title, Diamond Dallas Page stalking the Undertaker's wife, and WCW World Champion Booker T sneak attacking both Steve Austin and Vince McMahon on several occasions.

After weeks of this guerrilla warfare, WCW was finally given the stage on which they would get the opportunity to prove that in spite of everything that happened before the buyout, they had what it took to be successful.

 

Monday Night Raw: 7/2/2001 in Tacoma, Washington

The atmosphere amongst the WWF wrestlers on this night was not a happy one, with the general consensus being that this bunch of WCW losers was coming in to piggyback off of their success. However, with the recent string of sneak attacks that saw WCW wrestlers somehow get into buildings they weren't supposed to be in, the APA (who served as locker room leaders and chief vigilantes for much of the InVasion angle) suspected that there was a mole somewhere in the WWF roster who was helping the WCW wrestlers get in to do their damage.

Their chief suspect was Test, who was nowhere to be seen on Smackdown when WCW Tag Team Champions Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire snuck in and attacked the Hardyz. However, he WAS seen backstage talking to Booker T and maybe being a bit too chummy with him, as Booker asked whether Test would ever consider jumping to WCW, to which Test replied it wasn't out of the question if the money was right. The APA heard this from a referee who witnessed the whole thing, and led a lynch mob of WWF wrestlers out to attack Test during his match with Rhyno, leaving him laying after a 10-on-1 beatdown. They thought they had taken care of the mole, but later in the night they were informed by Sgt Slaughter that Test couldn't have been the mole because he was with Sarge when the attack happened. So they had mistakenly destroyed Test for a pseudo crime he had never committed, and now the question remained, who was the mole?

Amidst all this tension and paranoia, Vince McMahon was awaiting Shane's answer to his challenge for the InVasion PPV, and, as Steve Austin and Kurt Angle bickered in front of Vince over who was going to save the WWF from WCW, Shane came out during an in-ring promo with Vince to accept the challenge.

Once the match was set in stone, Vince spent the rest of his night thinking about something else entirely, as Torrie Wilson approached him and expressed that her dream was to be under a WWF contract and was willing to do anything to get one...ANYTHING. This led to a series of comedy segments where Vince would take Torrie to the shower, a mop closet, and even the men's room for the "interview process" only to be interrupted by Austin, Angle, and in the case of the men's room, Perry Saturn as he flushed the toilet and emerged from the stall with Moppy in hand.

Vince finally got Torrie alone at the end of the night in the laundry room, and Torrie stripped him down and told him to close his eyes and turn around for a big surprise. Vince did just that and opened his eyes to find himself face to face with his wife Linda. Vince appeared lost for words, and then played the indignant card, telling Linda that it wasn't what it looked like and condemning her for not trusting him as he waddled around the room with his pants around his ankles to pick up his clothes.

Vince's marital issues may have continued to make for great comedy fodder, but the Undertaker's marital issues were another matter entirely. Somebody had been stalking his wife Sara for weeks, taking pictures of her in secret and then airing them on WWF TV. The stalker was finally revealed to be Diamond Dallas Page, and he confronted Undertaker in a fight (not a match) that basically saw the Undertaker punk DDP out. On this episode of Raw, DDP ran in and gave Undertaker the Diamond Cutter during Undertaker's match with Albert. DDP tried to leave but Sara attacked him and then Kane came out and attacked DDP as well and set him up for Sara to kick him in the skateboard. Kane tossed DDP in to Undertaker, but Albert attacked Undertaker and DDP was able to escape and live to fight another day.

After all that, it was finally time for the moment we were all waiting for, as WCW would make its official debut on WWF TV with Booker T defending the WCW World Title against Buff Bagwell. The match was treated like a big deal and presented as if it were a different show, with Shane McMahon introducing Stacy Keibler to ring announce, while Arn Anderson & Scott Hudson would provide commentary at ringside. William Regal came out and had security eject Shane, who was fine with that since it's about the stars of WCW and he doesn't need to be in the spotlight like his father.

As for the match itself, it stunk. It was absolutely horrible, the crowd dumped on it with "this match sucks" chants, and it made for an all-around example of why WWE always sends people to Developmental before bringing them to TV no matter who they are. Their timing was off, they both appeared to blow up relatively quickly, the match was all kick/punch and had no flow, al they blew several spots. Finally, Steve Austin and Kurt Angle ran in and attacked Booker, with Bagwell joining in. They beat Booker all the way into the back and left him laying out in the parking lot and then went back inside where Bagwell started joking with them about the awesome beatdown they just perpetrated. Angle and Austin gave each other the "this guy is a dumbass" look before beating Bagwell down as well and tossing him out the door. Turns out that Bagwell would also end up getting tossed out of the WWF completely, with this being the last time he was ever seen on WWF TV.

* * *

Contrary to what people suspected about how WCW would be handled under the ownership of the McMahons, and regardless of how it would end up being presented over the rest of 2001, the fact is that they had made an effort to try and relaunch WCW as an independent business. The TV deal they expected to materialize never happened, and they ended up having to cut into their own TV time to get WCW out there, and after the way the Booker T-Bagwell match had stunk up the joint, Vince McMahon made the instant decision that all attempts to revive WCW under its own auspices would cease. He decided that WCW would never be able to work on its own, the "WCW on Raw" concept would be killed, and they would just go right into the InVasion storyline they had already been building to for the July PPV, let it run its course for a few months, then blow it off and move on without ever looking back.

Vince McMahon wasn't the only person who was disappointed with the way the WWF Monday Nitro experiment had played out, because the Booker-Bagwell match was panned universally by fans and critics, who felt that whether it be due to ring rust, a lazy sense of entitlement, or any of a dozen other theories, Booker and Bagwell had an opportunity to come out strong and show what the WCW crew could do and they had failed. That failure led directly to the final death of WCW as anything other than the name of a faction of wrestlers in the WWF.

But Vince McMahon had bought WCW and he was determined to do something with it, and you can find out what he tried next...on Page 2!

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