WWE almost put up two huge WCW vs. WWE matches after Vince McMahon bought out his once rival promotion.
On a recent episode of the Something To Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard and Conrad Thompson discussed the 2001 Invasion pay-per-view (PPV). After buying out WCW, Vince McMahon and the WWE had to decide which Superstars they wanted to sign and which they didn’t.
It turns out that some of the WCW talents that they’d like to have gotten under contract didn’t need to sign a new deal with another professional wrestling company anytime soon. After the sale some WCW stars were still getting paid to just sit at home as their guaranteed contracts were still being fulfilled.
Two matches that were apparently affected by that was a match between Goldberg and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and a bout between Sting and 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.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
