Smark Out Moment

Welcome to another edition of FANTASY BOOKING where we discuss what we would do if we were given the power to control what happens when it comes to WWE Creative and the planning of events.

This edition is sponsored by Guest Five, who donated to the Pick Your Poison tier for the Smark Out Moment Patreon (donate today if you'd like to request a special gimmick feature of your own!). Per his request, we will be looking at the full rosters for WWF, WCW and ECW that should have been available to rewrite the book for the WWF Invasion pay-per-view.

This means making the best possible card with all three rosters so that the event beats out what WWE had to offer back in 2001.

If you were in a position to change things, how would it go down? What would you do if you were in charge of creative control and could pick the matches?


The Rules:

Since this is a fantasy concept, we are not beholden to contract disputes. This means people like Goldberg are available to put in there. We have the full rosters of WWF, WCW and ECW that were under contract at the time.

However, we cannot add people who didn't get signed until after this event if they weren't already part of any of those 3 rosters.


Note 1: I wasn't watching WWF at this time, so I have no memory of which people were heel or face, which feuds had been exhausted, or anything like that. I'm kind of flying blind.

Note 2: Normally, I like to plan things out by the hour. However, I'm struggling with that this time, and I think the format of this post is better off with me showing you the matches on the card, rather than dictating how many minutes per segment and what placement on the card it would be.

Note 3: I will say, though, that I'm using the benefit of hindsight to say WWF needs to treat this like a modern day WrestleMania. That means I have 5-7 hours to work with. It's their first real Super Show, as they're merging 3 companies together. It can't be the same length as a regular event.

Note 4: In my version, ECW is not in an alliance with WCW. Instead, they decide they're going to take advantage of the chaos and create even more of a frenzy. For the most part, they attack WWF, but they also have no allegiance to WCW. They're just the unpredictable rebels.

Note 5: This is not the card I would make if I had total control over time. Then, I would have access to D-Generation X against nWo, Bret Hart would be in the mix along with Randy Savage and Dusty Rhodes and so on. That means this is not my "best people for WWF vs. best people for WCW" 20-man tag team match or something that I could do at another point in the future, maybe.


Vince McMahon purchases WCW. Shane McMahon does not. I'm retconning that. I don't know when this event takes place, but some time is spent building up some rivalries and telling some stories that largely deal with people not knowing where everyone stands on the companies merging.

Some WCW people are afraid they'll lose their jobs. Some WWF guys are afraid the WCW guys will come in and steal food off their table.

Paul Heyman realizes now is the time to strike and throws the WWF vs WCW war off its axis by saying ECW has been lying in wait and now, they're bringing the carnage. All these years, everyone always talked about what would happen with the two juggernauts, but nobody gave a shit about ECW, except the rebels. They were the rebel brand, so you know what? Now's the time to rebel.

Suddenly, it's full-on gang warfare. Superstars are defecting to different brands that they feel more comfortable with or believe more in the ideology of. Some are surprises, while others aren't shockers at all. There are babyfaces and heels on both sides (for instance, Booker T and Goldberg are heroes for WCW while Buff Bagwell is an asshole but still a WCW guy).

Plenty of face and heel turns. Too many to keep track of, particularly without having watched at the time. Just trust that I would have mapped this all out (hahaha).


Bikini Contest OR Bra and Panties Battle Royal: WWF Girls vs. WCW Girls vs. ECW Girls

It's 2001. This would be a parade of T&A. It would act as a buffer segment somewhere on the card and would mostly just showcase some of the hottest women the 3 brands had to offer in a popularity bikini contest or a strip-fest battle royal.

- Chyna as women's champion wouldn't participate. She would be pissed there aren't any strong women on either brand to actually fight her.
- Ivory would have tried to stop this on the weeks leading up to the show, as part of Right to Censor.

WWF Girls = Debra, Lita and Trish Stratus
WCW Girls = Midajah, Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson
ECW Girls = Beulah, Dawn Marie and Francine

The Undertaker vs. Sting

I don't care about the logic behind it, I want my Phenom back. This is Fantasy Booking, so I'm skipping ahead and using Sting to make him The Dead Man again for what I'm trying to make the best damn card possible. The Undertaker wins.

The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan

With the benefit of hindsight, I know that Rock/Hogan was something people ate up and that their promos would be more to get behind than Hogan against Stone Cold. Plus, I don't think The Rock against Goldberg couldn't have just been saved. Let's do Hogan/Austin and Rock/Goldberg at WrestleMania next year, or Goldberg/Undertaker.

Steve Austin vs. Goldberg

Like I said, let's do this one and get it out of the way, kind of. Goldberg wins.

War Games Match: Team WWF vs. Team WCW vs. Team ECW

Team WWF = Triple H, Big Show, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle
Team WCW = Booker T, DDP, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash and Lex Luger
Team ECW = Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer, Tazz, Rhyno and Raven

- Captains are Triple H, Booker T and Rob Van Dam

- Maybe this is an elimination match, but I don't know how you can pull that off, either. I'll admit that this is a clusterfuck of a card and that's mostly because I don't know what I'm working with!

Triple Threat Match: APA (WWF) vs. The Dudley Boyz (ECW) vs. The Steiner Brothers (WCW)

- The Dudley Boyz defected to ECW. This is kind of a battle of "the tough guy tag teams", so to speak.

- Most likely, The Steiner Brothers win.

Kane vs. Sycho Sid

- The battle of the behemoths (minus, you know, Big Show, Undertaker, Goldberg, etc). But these two are the psycho ones.

Rikishi vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

- So here's an idea. Bigelow was technically a WCW guy who had a good run in ECW and made his bread and butter in WWF. What if he was one of those constant turncoats? Here, I think I'd make him be on the behalf of ECW.

Lumberjack Match: Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon vs. Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair

Oh boy. This is a doozy that needs explanation.

Since Shane didn't buy WCW, he has no stake in it. Bischoff is trying to resist this takeover and a wager is put out there that they will have a match together, but their opponent picks their tag team partner.

To be assholes to each other, they try to pick someone they think they can't get along with. Bischoff picks Shane. After all, Shane and Vince were feuding for WrestleMania. To counter, Vince goes with someone he knows hates Bischoff and has had his issues with him in WCW, Ric Flair.

Vince doesn't trust Shane, but Shane says he's willing to set aside their differences to make sure his future legacy stands. Bischoff doesn't trust Flair, but Flair says that no matter what he feels about Bischoff, WCW runs through his veins and he wants to make sure it doesn't die, so he's willing to shake hands with him.

Vince and Shane win this match because Flair turns on Bischoff. Fuck you! I'm loyal to the NWA, not your nWo bullshit version of WCW! I even went to WWF in 1991. How did you not see this coming?

But here's the kicker. Vince McMahon needs to be a heel. He can't be a longterm babyface or anything, and people want to cheer Flair. So Flair has to turn on Vince down the line.

Oh...and this is a lumberjack match, wherein there are lots of people outside the ring that act as enforcers. Some of those include Mark Henry, Steve Blackman and Test for the WWF side of things, Buff Bagwell, Natural Born Thrillers and Haku/Meng for the WCW side of things.

Where's Paul Heyman in all this? He excused himself of the festivities, claiming that he's above it all and doesn't want to be part of a dick-measuring contest because everyone knows he'd win. He's extreme, baby. The real reason? He's a weasel and everyone can see right through it that he's not at all tough.

The Hardy Boyz vs. Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio)

Two babyface teams that will actually show respect to each other and just have a good match.

Cruiserweight Triple Threat: X-Pac vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Shane Helms

Who is the best cruiserweight? WWF's X-Pac, ECW's Jerry Lynn or WCW's Shane Helms?

Edge and Christian vs. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome vs. an ECW Team

Funny enough, this makes sense to me.

Random Comedic Segments

Speaking of funny, I have ideas in mind of backstage segments. If they wouldn't have been done already leading up to this point, this is when we'd have a lot of the rosters interact with each other.

- Kronik and X-Factor sounds like it writes itself.
- Too Cool in a dance segment with Alex Wright, Disco Inferno and 3-Count.
- Right to Censor would interact with the ECW crew (Al Snow, Sandman, Blue Meanie, Balls Mahoney and most importantly, Stevie Richards) who would beat them up. Then, to fight on behalf of WWF's honor, Crash Holly and Hardcore Holly would fight the ECW guys.
- Is there a spot for William Regal to try to defect to WCW as Lord Steven Regal? Maybe.
- MIA? Full Blooded Italians? Does anyone care?

The Radicalz Triple Threat: Eddie Guerrero (WWF) vs. Dean Malenko (WCW) vs. Perry Saturn (ECW)

- Basically, they would split based on where they feel more comfortable. Malenko's best work was in WCW, and that's more of the rasslin' show. Saturn is a nutjob, so he fits in more with ECW. Guerrero is a showman, so he's a WWF guy now.


This is just a means to have an explosion of a card. To follow this up, WWE would have to do some cuts.

That would lead to Survivor Series, maybe, or a new event of some other name that would have matches where everyone's careers are on the line. Anyone who didn't seem like they were worth paying for would get dropped.

Then, there would be an announcement of the draft, orchestrating the Raw and SmackDown brand split or possibly even having a third show called Xtreme (we're in 2001/2002, remember) with Raw acting as WWF, SmackDown acting as WCW and Xtreme acting as ECW, so to speak.