On the latest episode of Bruce Prichard and Conrad Thompson’s Something To Wrestle podcast, the guys dug deep into WWE’s 2001 Invasion pay-per-view. It was the culmination of WWE purchasing WCW & ECW and injecting what was left of both brands into television storylines.
WWE had a ton of dream matches that they wanted to make, but a certain contractual issue prevented that form happening. After the WCW sale stars were still being paid by Turner Broadcasting from guaranteed contracts. Some of them decided to continue collecting guaranteed money instead of signing a deal with WWE.
Two big matches that were impacted by this were Goldberg vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin and Sting vs. The Undertaker:
“I think again without all the particulars, the first match that comes to mind was Austin vs. Goldberg. To have that matchup at some point. To be able to build to it. Same thing with Undertaker and Sting. There was thinking, ‘okay do you bring back Hall and Nash and put them back into the fold?’ There were a lot of what if’s.
“It all becomes mental masturbation at that point. Because with the exception of JR, I don’t think there was anyone who had really dealt with Goldberg and Goldberg showed zero desire, nil, zilch to come in. He had his deal [with Turner] and was going to be paid out. He didn’t want to come in so the fact that he didn’t want to come in — we sure as hell wasn’t gonna go after him. We didn’t want anybody that didn’t want to be here.”
Listen to the Invasion episode of Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard & Conrad Thompson:
H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcribed quotes
