WCW Wrestlers whos contracts were purchased by WWE

[Bullgod]

When WWE bought WCW which wrestlers did WWE buy out of there contract? so far I have come up with

DDP
Booker T
Billy Kidman
Chavo Guerrero
Chris Kanyon
Hugh Morrus
Lance Storm
Buff Bagwell (Fired after a week)
Mike Awesome
Shawn Stasiak
Stacy Keibler
Torrie Wilson
Chuck Palumbo
Shawn O'Haire
Mark Jindrak (Sent to Development)
Shane Helms
Shannon Moore (sent to development)
Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli (Sent to Development)
Jamie Noble (Sent to Development)
Jimmy Yang (Sent to Development)
Reno (Sent to Development & Never used)
Disco Inferno (Sent to Development & Never used)
Mike Sanders (Sent to Development & Never used)
Evan Karragias (Sent to Development & Never used)
Elix Skipper (Sent to Development & Never used)
Lash Leroux (Sent to Development & Never used)
Crowbar (Sent to Development & Never used)
Nick Patrick
Charles Robinson
Scott Hudson (Commentator, let go after first appearance)
Stevie Ray (Commentator, let go after first appearance)

I think thats all of them, is there anybody I've missed, I know alot of other WCW wrestlers came to WWE after the Invasion angle and I know all the rest of them sat out and waited for there contracts with Ted Turner to expire?

[Himmy!]

Damn I never remember Scott Hudson and Stevie Ray appearing.

[threehgame]

That list is a great example of why the Invasion angle failed. DDP and Booker T were the biggest names while Goldberg, Nash and Steiner were brought in later for HHH to feud with and Sting has never been signed.

Your list looks complete from what I remember. Great post.

[Deleted]

Jan 11, 2012 6:54:32 GMT -5 Himmy! said:

Damn I never remember Scott Hudson and Stevie Ray appearing.

LOL me neither.thanks for the list man.

[Bullgod]

Jan 11, 2012 7:07:00 GMT -5 threehgame said:

That list is a great example of why the Invasion angle failed. DDP and Booker T were the biggest names while Goldberg, Nash and Steiner were brought in later for HHH to feud with and Sting has never been signed.

Your list looks complete from what I remember. Great post.

DDP was buried in European title feuds and Booker T hadnt been main eventing for that long when WCW got sold. I think Sting would have been essential, as he was allways the face of WCW going from late 80's up until its closure. Up until mid 90's it was hard to see anything WCW over in the UK, but I remember seeing things like WCW action figures and WCW trading cards and anuals and the face that was allways on them was Sting, even though at that time I only watched WWF in the early 90's I knew that there was another wrestling promotion out there called WCW and there main guy was Sting. I think they also needed Bill Goldberg who was the main guy at the time of its closure and I think he could have drawn big with a feud with Undertaker at the time, and I think they also needed Eric Bischoff to maybe act as Shane McMahons business partner. I think the casual wrestling fan who had only seen WWF at the time barely had a clue who any of the WCW guys were other than DDP and Booker T. I think Lex Luger could have also made an impact as he was another face I allways asociated with WCW early on, and Ric Flair.

From what I heard when WCW had there first match on WWF Raw it was Booker T VS Buff Bagwell and they stunk the house out, apparently Vince McMahon was going nuts backstage and kicking off because none of the WCW wrestlers knew what they were doing in the ring, and made the decision after that one match that WCW didnt have enough talent to stand on its own, up until then Vince was planning on getting a WCW show on saturday nights (Source = Chris Jericho - Undisputed)

As for the commentating I was wrong about Stevie Ray, I always thought him and Scott Hudson called the match on Raw with Booker T and Buff Bagwell but it was Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson, sorry about that

[Chris Hammers]

I always liked Crowbar. Shame he never got used in WWE.

[LtD73]

I never really watched WCW but from the clips of Buff Bagwell i've seen, i really liked him, shame WWF Nitro tanked and they fired him

What happened with Rey Mysterio? WWE didn't bring him in until 18 months after they bought WCW, did they buy his contract straight away or in 2002

[Bullgod]

Jan 11, 2012 8:15:04 GMT -5 LtD73 said:

I never really watched WCW but from the clips of Buff Bagwell i've seen, i really liked him, shame WWF Nitro tanked and they fired him

What happened with Rey Mysterio? WWE didn't bring him in until 18 months after they bought WCW, did they buy his contract straight away or in 2002

Rey Mysterio sat out and waited for his Time Warner contract to expire and signed with WWF later on, same as Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Steiner and Ric Flair.

[Himmy!]

Jan 11, 2012 7:39:01 GMT -5 Bullgod said:

Jan 11, 2012 7:07:00 GMT -5 threehgame said:

That list is a great example of why the Invasion angle failed. DDP and Booker T were the biggest names while Goldberg, Nash and Steiner were brought in later for HHH to feud with and Sting has never been signed.

Your list looks complete from what I remember. Great post.

DDP was buried in European title feuds and Booker T hadnt been main eventing for that long when WCW got sold. I think Sting would have been essential, as he was allways the face of WCW going from late 80's up until its closure. Up until mid 90's it was hard to see anything WCW over in the UK, but I remember seeing things like WCW action figures and WCW trading cards and anuals and the face that was allways on them was Sting, even though at that time I only watched WWF in the early 90's I knew that there was another wrestling promotion out there called WCW and there main guy was Sting. I think they also needed Bill Goldberg who was the main guy at the time of its closure and I think he could have drawn big with a feud with Undertaker at the time, and I think they also needed Eric Bischoff to maybe act as Shane McMahons business partner. I think the casual wrestling fan who had only seen WWF at the time barely had a clue who any of the WCW guys were other than DDP and Booker T. I think Lex Luger could have also made an impact as he was another face I allways asociated with WCW early on, and Ric Flair.

From what I heard when WCW had there first match on WWF Raw it was Booker T VS Buff Bagwell and they stunk the house out, apparently Vince McMahon was going nuts backstage and kicking off because none of the WCW wrestlers knew what they were doing in the ring, and made the decision after that one match that WCW didnt have enough talent to stand on its own, up until then Vince was planning on getting a WCW show on saturday nights (Source = Chris Jericho - Undisputed)

As for the commentating I was wrong about Stevie Ray, I always thought him and Scott Hudson called the match on Raw with Booker T and Buff Bagwell but it was Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson, sorry about that

No problem man, I'm interested to see that nonetheless.

[LtD73]

Jan 11, 2012 8:39:32 GMT -5 Bullgod said:

Jan 11, 2012 8:15:04 GMT -5 LtD73 said:

I never really watched WCW but from the clips of Buff Bagwell i've seen, i really liked him, shame WWF Nitro tanked and they fired him

What happened with Rey Mysterio? WWE didn't bring him in until 18 months after they bought WCW, did they buy his contract straight away or in 2002

Rey Mysterio sat out and waited for his Time Warner contract to expire and signed with WWF later on, same as Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Steiner and Ric Flair.

So he did it for the money

[dante123]

crobar did a make an appearance on velocity and Kaz Hayashi made one appearance also

[cordless2016]

Don't forget Jeff Jarrett's contract was also apart of the WCW deal, but Vince didn't bring him in for obvious reasons. If Vince was smart, he would have as he needed as many top guys as he could for this angle.

I don't get why people say that DDP and Booker T wern't proven guys at the time when DDP was one of WCW's biggest stars and was in feuds w/ celebrities like Jay Leno, Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone, and David Arquette. Booker T had also been a long time WCW employee and was their biggest face when the company sold. The guy was given clean wins over Goldberg, Nash, Steiner, and Jarrett over the years, so the guy was proven in the main event.

When they came to the WWF, they were around the same popularity that Nash and Hall were when they jumped to WCW in 1996, and look at how well WCW made that work. Had Vince and the WWF made Booker and DDP look credible by giving them some clean wins over the top WWF guys, the Invasion could have worked w/ the guys that they had. Instead, Vince jobbed Booker out to every top WWF guy he had and DDP was pinned by Taker's wife.

[drifter]

Jan 11, 2012 9:52:19 GMT -5 LtD73 said:

Jan 11, 2012 8:39:32 GMT -5 Bullgod said:

Rey Mysterio sat out and waited for his Time Warner contract to expire and signed with WWF later on, same as Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Steiner and Ric Flair.

So he did it for the money

Do you blame him? You get to basically take a paid vacation, spend time with your family and heal your body. I don't blame one single guy that sat out their Time Warner contracts for doing that.

[garseys]

the only person off your list was Arn Anderson (he did the first WCW on RAW match) and then started working as an agent.

[Johnny Lawrence - Cobra Kai]

John Laurinaitis also came over when WCW was bought out ... not 100% sure if his contract was immediately transferred over or if they signed him separately, but it was pretty quick.

[K5]

Jan 11, 2012 7:54:23 GMT -5 Chris Hammers said:

I always liked Crowbar. Shame he never got used in WWE.

i was also a fan. sloppy but entertaining

[Bullgod]

The wrestlers who sat out and collected money on there contract were still allowed to wrestle as long it was non televised indipendant or outside of America, Rey Mysterio went back to Mexico, and alot of other wrestlers such as Sting, Lex Luger Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Konnan, Shane Douglas, Norman Smiley, Juventud, Psichosis, went on a european tour with WWA (which was an Australian promotion) along with all WWF wrestlers who had been recently released such as Road Dogg, Grand Master Sexay and others, aswell as all the unemployed ECW wrestlers it was a great show, I got to see it when it came to UK

[done]

Jan 11, 2012 7:54:23 GMT -5 Chris Hammers said:

I always liked Crowbar. Shame he never got used in WWE.

he had some matches in the WWE

[Calcifer Boheme]

Jan 11, 2012 11:55:05 GMT -5 cordless2016 said:

Don't forget Jeff Jarrett's contract was also apart of the WCW deal, but Vince didn't bring him in for obvious reasons. If Vince was smart, he would have as he needed as many top guys as he could for this angle.

I don't get why people say that DDP and Booker T wern't proven guys at the time when DDP was one of WCW's biggest stars and was in feuds w/ celebrities like Jay Leno, Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone, and David Arquette. Booker T had also been a long time WCW employee and was their biggest face when the company sold. The guy was given clean wins over Goldberg, Nash, Steiner, and Jarrett over the years, so the guy was proven in the main event.

When they came to the WWF, they were around the same popularity that Nash and Hall were when they jumped to WCW in 1996, and look at how well WCW made that work. Had Vince and the WWF made Booker and DDP look credible by giving them some clean wins over the top WWF guys, the Invasion could have worked w/ the guys that they had. Instead, Vince jobbed Booker out to every top WWF guy he had and DDP was pinned by Taker's wife.

To me, the problem wasn't that DDP and Booker weren't top guys, it's that they were the only ones. If guys like Awesome or Storm hadn't lost so much steam by the end, they could have helped a lot too, but most o the people brought in were seen as second rate compared to the WWE roster... Of course, the biggest problem was the booking and the fact that WWE made sure everyone knew they were second rate.

Jan 11, 2012 14:18:07 GMT -5 drifter said:

Jan 11, 2012 9:52:19 GMT -5 LtD73 said:

So he did it for the money

Do you blame him? You get to basically take a paid vacation, spend time with your family and heal your body. I don't blame one single guy that sat out their Time Warner contracts for doing that.

I think Rey did it more because his knee was banged up and there was no point getting out his lucrative deal when he couldn't actually wrestle. Also, he wouldn't have fit the invasion anyway, I just can't see Rey as a heel.

Also, Bagwell did it to himself. In the week he was there, he got into a fight with Shane Helms, had a match with Booker T that was so bad it ruined the concept of having WCW matches and almost cost Booker his job to, and took a day off having his mom call in for him. H just wasn't worth the hassle.

[Liu Kangaroo]

I don't remember Stevie Ray appearing, at all. Was it on SmackDown? (I never had UPN so I couldn't watch SD)