R.A.W Classics: WCW in HWA
What do you do when you purchase your competition and obtain contracts for a number of their most talented workers? Well you take a handful of them, for your own gain, and dump the remaining workers in developmental to build up talent your interested in bringing on board.
That's basically what happened after WWE (then WWF) bought, their main competitor, WCW on March 23rd 2001.
Whilst the biggest asset WWE got, from the sale, was access to WCW's video tape library, which also included footage from Jim Crockett Promotions, they also got their hands on a number of WCW talent that weren't locked in contracts with, WCW's parent company, AOL TimeWarner.
While talent like Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Hugh Morris, Chris Kanyon, Lance Storm and Mike Awesome (the first person from WCW to win a WWE title) got to get some decent airtime, on WWE's 'Raw' and 'SmackDown' programmes, talent like Elix Skipper, Johnny The Bull, Mike Sanders, Reno and Kwee Wee landed in, then WWE developmental, Heartland Wrestling Association as a part of their own invasion angle.
With the exception of the odd dark match, before 'Raw' tapings, most of these talent never saw the main WWE roster during their time with the company.
That's basically what happened after WWE (then WWF) bought, their main competitor, WCW on March 23rd 2001.
Whilst the biggest asset WWE got, from the sale, was access to WCW's video tape library, which also included footage from Jim Crockett Promotions, they also got their hands on a number of WCW talent that weren't locked in contracts with, WCW's parent company, AOL TimeWarner.
While talent like Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Hugh Morris, Chris Kanyon, Lance Storm and Mike Awesome (the first person from WCW to win a WWE title) got to get some decent airtime, on WWE's 'Raw' and 'SmackDown' programmes, talent like Elix Skipper, Johnny The Bull, Mike Sanders, Reno and Kwee Wee landed in, then WWE developmental, Heartland Wrestling Association as a part of their own invasion angle.
With the exception of the odd dark match, before 'Raw' tapings, most of these talent never saw the main WWE roster during their time with the company.
Whilst the idea of the WCW 'Invasion' going into WWE's developmental system seemed to make a lot of sense, and made a pretty good angle itself, the real reason behind these particular talents being kept there was a lot less appealing.
Allan Funk, aka Kwee Wee, said in one interview that he believes the purpose of WCW talent remaining in HWA was solely to help develop future WWE prospects.
Think of when WWE brought back ECW, in 2006, and basically jobbed out ECW Originals like Justin Credible, Danny Doring and C.W. Anderson to help further develop guys like Kevin Thorn and CM Punk.
The only difference between 'Team WCW' members and, the lower card, ECW Originals was that the ECW guys got to be on WWE TV.
Maybe things would have been a lot different had WWE managed to get WCW it's own television show (as originally planned) however this never happened and non of those talent made it to the main roster 'Invasion' angle.
Maybe, as well, if WWE had enough faith in the guys they put in HWA they may have never had to rely on bringing in ECW, to form 'The Alliance' with WCW, after the WCW 'Invasion' angle was proving to be a huge disappointment.
It's not like these guys had no talent and they also had previous national television exposure on shows like WCW's 'Nitro' and 'Thunder' on TNT and TBS respectively.
We've decided to take a look back, with a couple of matches, at the talent 'Team WCW' had, and the time they spent in HWA, to prove that WWE may have dropped the ball on producing a decent, main roster, 'Invasion' angle if done properly.
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