5 iconic invasions of WWE
Invasions are kind of a weird thing in the world of WWE. In terms of story, they involve an individual group (more often than not from a rival wrestling promotion) appearing on a promotion's show in an attempt to take them over or destroy them. It would be like if Pepsi employees all went to the offices of Coca-Cola and started beating everybody there up.
The most successful of these is, without a doubt, the New World Order in World Championship Wrestling. Ironically, its success may have led to WCW's eventual downfall, as the company was unable to replicate that success and relied on it far past its expiration date.
Over the years, promotions used this concept numerous times and to various degrees of success. Not all of these involved other promotions, but they were all presented as legitimate threats to the show's existence. Well, except for one, but that wasn't really an invasion, per se and... look, we'll get to that.
Anyway, here's 5 iconic "Invasions" of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Honorable Mention: The Radicalz invade WWE
There's a bit of an unfair misconception about WCW that the company wasn't interested in creating new main event talent. They've been accused of just relying on wrestlers who made their names in WWE, and holding back the rest.
Of course, that doesn't take into account guys like Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, Big Show (The Giant) and, to a lesser extent, Scott Steiner. After all, three of those names are WWE Hall of Famers, and another most certainly will be someday and, finally, Scott Steiner. All of them were main-event names.
But they were the exceptions, and it became obvious that most guys in the locker room had reached the ceiling in terms of success in WCW. That's when Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero jumped ship together.
The four men, who had been grouped with Shane Douglas as "The Revolution" in WCW, appeared on RAW on January 31st, 2000. Seated at ringside as "free agents," they were dubbed The Radicalz and, in the beginning of their WWE careers, worked cohesively as a unit.
While the goal of The Radicalz was never to "take over" the promotion - on the contrary, they wanted to work there - it's an example of wrestlers associated with a different company suddenly arriving, and having that association being a main focus.