Rebooking the WCW/ECW Invasion Storyline: Part 4
You will have noticed that despite the majority of WCW's main event crew (who were available to WWE in 2001) being booked on these cards, the focus of the storyline is younger talent such as Rob Van Dam, Edge, Christian and Billy Kidman.
Fresh main event stars such as Booker T, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle are also heavily featured as well as stalwarts, The Rock, Stone Cold and Ric Flair.
The previous weeks of storyline have seen veteran talents such as Sabu, Sandman and Lex Luger depart to make way for the young guns.
Unforgiven 2001 is in the books and the build is now focused on No Mercy 2001, which at the time was universally regarded as a woeful card, bereft of originality, which ultimately led to the Invasion being brought to an abrupt end just four weeks afterwards. This version of the Invasion as stated previously will possess much greater staying power and will not culminate until WrestleMania X-8.
The journey to No Mercy will see the WWF debut of Sting, a full 13 years before he appeared for the company in the real world.
A reduction of titles has also seen added importance added to the belts that remain.
Champion roll call: (as of September 23, 2001)
WWF Champion - Stone Cold
IC Champion - Edge
European Champion - Edge
Hardcore Champion - Rob Van Dam
WWF Tag Team Champions - The Dudley Boyz
WCW Champion - Kurt Angle
US Champion - Kurt Angle
Cruiserweight Champion - Billy Kidman
Let's get to the post-Unforgiven Raw as SK re-books the build to No Mercy!