TEW 2020 - Here Comes The Money 2001 Release

Thoughts & FAQs

Real History Info Dump - Why WCW Ended The Way It Did & Why The Invasion Was Always Going To Suck No Matter How You Want To Fantasy Book:

Despite everyone thinking they could have done the Invasion better or thinking WWF should have kept WCW alive, the ultimate truth is how it played out was really the only way it could have played out. At least from a talent POV. First and foremost, WWF could and would have never been able to bring in Hogan, Nash, Flair & Goldberg to name a few, but even some other stars. They had guaranteed contracts with Time Warner. How WWF actually acquired the talent it did acquire was 1 of 2 ways. The obvious one was simply telling Time Warner to give them the contract and they would honour everything in it. From what I can tell, that was not the case with many talent based on listening to many interviews.. Way 2, the talent accepts a release from their Time Warner contract, effectively walking away from it mutually, and WWF signs them to a new deal. This is how WWF actually acquired the 30-some odd wrestlers they did. Booker T, DDP & Bagwell were notable examples of talent who would have made very good, if not better, money sitting on their asses, but accepted buy outs to instead go to WWF. Pretty much all the big names were unwilling to do that. Hogan was plenty comfortable sitting on his ass and getting millions of dollars. Its arguable in two cases I came across of talent that would have maybe taken the buyout, but otherwise didnt. Jeff Jarrett & Rey Mysterio. Jarrett simply wasnt wanted. So why would he walk away from the deal. Mysterio was going to, but Jim Ross told him to stay home and heal, and that it would be better for his career. "But WWF should have just taken on the big contracts of Hogan, Goldberg, ect, because it would have been so cool and made the invasion better." Okay... You are Steve Austin getting 1.5 million a year. Now Hulk Hogan walks into YOUR locker room making 3.5 million a year with creative control and every other clause in his deal. No house shows, better event bonuses. What would Steve Austin do? Undertaker? Rock? Every single loyal WWF employee would be slapped in the face by Hogan, Nash & Goldberg not to mention others walking in and not only now making a LOT more then them, but now WWF has their incentive-laden contracts to deal with.

"WWF should have just waited for the deals to expire since most guys showed up by 2002 anyway." There is an argument to be made for that. But then you are also effectively putting WCW "on-ice" for a year or more. Its dangerous. And further, what ended up happening is most of the big talent often named actually had many years on their contract. What ended up happening in 2002, is TimeWarner went to those stars on a contract-by-contract basis and negotiated their own buyout. So instead of before where talent had to simply walk away and not make a time, TimeWarner went to each star and negotiated a buy out. A made up example, they go to Hogan who has 3-years at 3.5 million a year left on his deal. They offer to pay him 7 million right now to kill the contract immediately, thus saving them money in the long run, but instantly giving Hogan 7 million dollars while then also allowing him to pursue certain things he couldnt while under a deal. Like signing with WWE. So he takes the 7, then signs with WWF for 2 million a year for 3-years. Hogan would have been able to say "no thanks" too, but didnt. I dont know who ended up doing what, but that's just an example. WWE had no idea when these things would happen so its not like Flair or Hogan becoming available when they did was a guarantee they could build towards.

"WWF should have gotten a new WCW TV show or turned one of their shows into a WCW show to keep it going and build new stars until the old ones could come back or something" They tried! First, networks didnt want it for a price that would make it affordable with large contracts that would be needed to support it. Second, in America, WWE had an exclusive deal with Viacom who didnt want any new wrestling programming, let alone WCW. The network wouldn't let them turn RAW, SmackDown!, or Heat into WCW. Viacom DID throw WWF a bone and offer them a Saturday night slot, from 11PM to 1AM and for a time WWF did consider doing it. Whether it was the Bagwell vs. Booker disaster that ultimately killed it or not, is to be argued. I would contend, the most realistic way ever that WCW would have gone on is if WWF had put it on TNN at that time slot, but who knows what would have happened to it then. The timeslot later became Velocity for 1-hour and Confidential (that Mean Gene hosted insider kind of show) for 1-hour.

Besides the Invasion happening as it did, what is the most realistic way WCW could have gone?

Just my opinion, though I have outside this data really tried to research this point in wrestling history a lot.

The ultimate most realistic way May 2001-on could have played out, without it being what actually happened, is if WWF kept WCW alive as a sub-brand with that 11PM-1AM time slot on TNN. How WWF would or could have made it a viable brand, is way to hard to say. Either way the WCW roster would have needed to been boosted and/or expanded. Booker, DDP, Bagwell and to a lesser extent Lance Storm could not headline a brand. Whether that came through an ECW invasion of WCW. Guys like RVD/Dreamer/Sabu/Tajiri/Corino/Super Crazy/Sandman/Roadkill/Doring just being signed to be WCW without an invasion. Developmental guys being brought up early (I still think most were too green). WWF stars being moved over.  Or something else. I do think a WCW brand would have needed a handful of names to join it from WWF. All the Radicalz, Jericho or Big Show are obvious choices because they are still "WCW-ish." I also believe there is a chance had WWF kept WCW as a brand, Rey would have come in sooner for sure.

So an interesting diary for someone to make could be playing as WWF with WCW as a sub-brand and then holding off on an invasion for a year and a bit until the "big names" can show up. Or after a year of turning WCW around, then pretending Viacom would have allowed RAW or SmackDown to be turned into a WCW show. Part of my own head cannon about WCW at this time is guys like D'Lo Brown, Mark Henry, Chaz, Some pieces of the Right to Censor, would all have been semi-obvious candidates to move to WCW had this happened.

Mr. Canada's fun random list of wrestlers you should be interested in signing at the start of the game in the name-of-realism as WCW:

AJ Styles, Balls Mahoney, BG James, Bob Sapp, Chris Candido, Chris Harris, Christopher Daniels, Curt Hennig, CW Anderson, Cyrus, Daffney, Danny Doring, Davey Boy Smith (talk him out of retirement), Dawn Marie, Devon Storm (Crowbar), Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno), James Mitchell, James Storm, Jazz, Jeremy Borash, Jerry Lawler, Jim Duggan, Joe E. Legend, Joey Styles, Johnny Swinger, Kid Kash, Konnan, La Par-K (La Parka), Lenny Lane, Little Guido, Lodi, Mark Johnson, Michael Modest, Mike Tenay, Mikey Whipwreck, Nelson Knight (Viscera), Nicho el Millionario (Psicosis), Nova, Road Warrior Animal, Road Warrior Hawk, Roadkill, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Scott Armstrong, Scott Hall, Shark Boy, Simon Diamond, Sonny Siaki, Steve Corino, Super Crazy, Terry Taylor, The Prototype (John Cena), The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Tony Mamaluke, Vader, Vampiro, Yoshihiro Tajiri.}

Hayabusa Isnt Hurt Yet!

I just like to point out Hayabusa is not yet hurt in May 2001. His career ending injury happened in October 2001. Its just a nice thing I like to point out as Hayabusa is/was amazing and still only 32 in 2001 so could be a very important worker.

There's no user characters?

I dont like user characters. Most people tend to just make themselves dont they? And I wasnt going to put myself in a data I released. And I was 14 in 2001. Feel free to add your own. If you read my many walls of text, you'll see I actually made this data intending people play as Shane McMahon himself. But you could play as anyone or make yourself. Fun fact: when doing sims to just see how the data is behaving (simulating anywhere from 1-month to 20-years) I usually would pick David Arquette as a user character and thats half the reason he's in the data. And for some reason when I dont pick Arquette I pick Larry Sharpe. I dont know why.

Chris Benoit & Other Pitiful Workers

I feel its worth mentioning. I always end up setting Benoit to deceased in my games, usually through the in-game editor. I cant stand what he did despite being such a fan of his wrestling career. The sad truth is there are a lot of wrestlers who have done some really rotten things, but Benoit takes the cake. I am often conflicted about how to include, or even if I should include certain workers in data. For example, Rob Feinstein will not be in the data since he really isnt that important.

Where is Darby Allin or *insert other worker who has only showed up in recent years really*?

Let's all be honest. Most of us play games for a handful of years tops and then restart or try something else. I was not, and am not, going to spend 100's of hours making wrestlers who debut or became relevant only very recently into the data. For now, I'm using the soft rule of 2005 debuts or earlier as people I'm interested in adding. Since that will arguably keep the data more then populated for people who do wish to play 20-year saves. It is worth mentioning the data now can last that long since retirements never seem to happen enough. I'm not sure why that is. but people just dont retire as often as they do in real wrestling. So many indy guys give up have 3-6 years of not going anywhere. But guys just love holding on in this one. I personally always get annoyed at the Mean Street Posse having such long illustrious careers usually.

The ratings of many wrestlers seem low!
I tend to air on the side of low then high when it comes to stats. At least I feel I do. Especially with younger wrestlers. So many time-period mods overrate stars based on who they were later in their career, not who they were when the data actually takes place. Should AJ Styles be a great worker? No. He wasnt yet. He had cool moves and great athleticism. But even early TNA, his matches were just athletic and fun to watch but not particularly good unless Jerry Lynn was holding his hand. I also view historical data through the idea that every change that is made means there's a chance a certainty we know today might not happen. Something about butterflies wings? I cant remember that saying. ANYWAY, that being said, because WCW lives and the world as we know it no longer exists, its possible AJ never turns into the wrestler he did. He never goes to ROH or TNA or wrestles this guy on that night or has this epiphany at that time, so maybe he fizzles out. Does he have a better chance at becoming a great wrestler then... Crazy Ivan? Yes. He will 99% likely have a more successful career then Crazy Ivan... But Maybe Crazy Ivan has that one string of matches that catches a WCW bookers eye, and he gets pushed to the moon and ends up a 10-time WCW champion. Anything can happen. Some things should be more likely or less likely, but nothing is guaranteed.

So-and-so's stats are really wrong!

Feel free to share and explain why in a calm way and maybe link some matches that I can watch for free. Will I watch them? Maybe. Will I change stats? Maybe. There is A LOT of guess work that goes into historical mod making. I have to admit I've never seen a Human Time Bomb match. Maybe I really have it that wrong.