Match of the Day - a WCW match in WWF?

Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell - Raw (2001)

Here's something interesting, a wCw match taking place on Raw.

This World Heavyweight title main event didn't just happen on Raw because Nitro was full that night. No, at this point in 2001, WCW and all of its talent (the ones still around) was now owner by Vince McMahon who could do whatever he wanted with it. So, before doing away with the WCW name all together and calling the wrestlers still around "The Invasion", or later, "The Alliance" as talent still lingering for pay with ECW and WWF Benedict Arnolds started joining in, it looked like WCW was going to have its own brand inside Raw. At least that's what they made it out be one night in July with Booker T, the current WCW World Heavyweight champion taking on Buff Bagwell in his only appearance on Raw.

To think, if this match didn't get booed out of the building, would we have seen WCW become a brand just like ECW did years later? Ehh, maybe - but probably not. Brands hadn't really been thought up at this point in WWF and I don't think McMahon wanted to give these wrestlers (he had acquired from the AOL Time Warner Buy-out) their own show every week. No TV network wanted that, that's for sure. The whole situation was sort of reminiscent of when WCW decided NWO should be its own separate thing; Thus creating WCW/NWO Revenge (the N64 game) and Souled Out, a PPV originally conceived as an NWO-only event with WCW wrestlers as challengers.

Overall impression of the match: I remember this happening very well actually. At the time, I was a huge WWF mark and seeing WCW talent coming in and having their own wCw logo and apron on the ring really gave me the frights! I mean, I really thought that WCW was going to somehow take over big and powerful WWF and I would have to put up with more of their crap that they tried pulling out of their ass like they did in 2000-2001.

WCW was done. With that being said, I don't think I watched this match the first time it aired - but I did stay tuned for the end when Kurt Angle and Stone Cold Steve Austin (who would later jump ship and join The Alliance themselves) attacked Booker to end this match and the fans misery. No wait! scratch that, I didn't! I think the last thing I remember from this Raw was Austin kicking Bagwell out of the building (literally) while my past self cheered for the fact that I'd never have to see Buffman - I mean Buff Bagwell - or his mom on TV ever again.

Also, Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson make one boring commentating team. That and this match was pretty much doomed from the beginning. Boring, un-WWF, not main event level wrestler, and an all around poor attempt to convince anyone that a WCW reincarnation in the WWF could ever exist.