What Might Have Been...

The Alliance came about as a result of the World Wrestling Federation's purchase of World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was brought in to help boost the presence of WCW.

The original plan was for the WWF-owned WCW to be a babyface group, led by Shane McMahon (who was the storyline owner of WCW) to go against the heel owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon. During May and June 2001, wrestlers identified as being "under contract to WCW" (such as Lance Storm and Hugh Morrus) "invaded" WWF programming, interfering in matches. The ultimate goal, reportedly, was for WCW to "take over" one of the WWF's two primary programs, either RAW or SmackDown!, and rebrand it as its own separate entity. To test the waters for this, the final twenty minutes of a RAW telecast in June was given over to WCW, which brought in its own announcers (Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson), ring apron, and Chyron graphics, to present a match between Booker T and Buff Bagwell for Booker's WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

However, fans continued to side with the WWF superstars during the run-ins, and the Booker/Bagwell title match was very poorly received by viewers both in the live crowd and watching at home. The decision was thus taken to make WCW a heel group whose stated goal was to run the WWF out of business once and for all. This may have been a wiser storyline choice overall than trying to get WCW over as faces with the crowd: WCW was noted for its underhanded tactics against the WWF in the 1990s, and many of the WWF's fans were rabidly loyal to "their" brand and viewed WCW as an amateurish "minor league."

The ECW faction was initially introduced to the storyline as a "wild card" in the equation, apparently holding an allegiance to neither the WWF nor WCW. This changed at the end of the RAW telecast that introduced them, as it was revealed that (in the storyline) ECW had "merged" with WCW to form a "supergroup" to more effectively challenge the WWF. The combined group was originally known as "WCW/ECW" but the rights to ECW's assets (including the use of its name on-air by the WWF) were still being debated in bankruptcy court, so the name of the group was shortened to "The Coalition" — and some weeks later, "The Alliance" — shortly after ECW was added to the storyline.

At WWF Invasion, Team Alliance (then known as Team WCW/ECW) defeated Team WWF in a ten-man tag team match billed as the "Inaugural Brawl." A team of Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno, and The Dudley Boyz defeated a WWF contingent of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle, and Chris Jericho. During the match, Austin turned heel and joined the Alliance, helping them score the victory. Austin's joining was an attempt to make-up for the lack of major WCW stars; although DDP and Booker T had signed with the WWF, the likes of Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Sting were still under contract to Turner.

Despite a high fan reaction at the start of the storyline, interest slowly faded as poorly executed storylines resulted in fewer and fewer fans tuning in. Some fans complained that talent (such as DDP, who had been written into a stalker storyline involving The Undertaker's wife) was being wasted in badly written storylines, while Austin's heel turn (despite his involvement in many entertaining vignettes) never really caught on. Adding to the general sense of futility was the fact the WWF had added most of WCW's titles (including the United States, WCW Tag Team, and Cruiserweight titles) to their own mix, creating many redundant championships and thus lessening their meaning in the eyes of the fans. There were also objections to the continued use of the McMahon family as the focal point of the entire storyline, with Shane ostensibly running WCW and Stephanie McMahon revealed as the "new owner" of ECW. While fans were willing to accept the concept of Shane as owner of WCW, the concept of Stephanie as owner of ECW erupted in a backlash from the fans, particularly among the ECW's hardcore faithful, who had been with the company from start to end. Paul Heyman, long considered to be the heart and soul of ECW (or at least a large chunk of it), was reduced to a shadow of his old "Paul E. Dangerously" gimmick from his WCW days in which he was a simpering gopher, rather than the forceful and charismatic owner of ECW that many fans came to know and love him as.

The Alliance came to an end at Survivor Series 2001 in a five-on-five, Winner Takes All elimination match. Representing the WWF were The Rock, The Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho, and The Big Show. The Alliance wrestlers were Stone Cold Steve Austin, Booker T, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, and Shane McMahon. Of the five participants representing The Alliance, only two, Booker T and RVD, could actually be considered bona fide WCW or ECW wrestlers as opposed to WWF wrestlers (Austin, although an alumnus of both WCW and ECW, found his greatest fame in the WWF and was mainly identified as a WWF wrestler; Kurt Angle had never wrestled for any other pro organization besides the WWF, though he wrestled one non-televised match with ECW; and Shane McMahon is the son of the WWF's owner). Furthermore, the final two survivors in the match were Steve Austin and The Rock (a perfect example of the WWF's opinion of the storyline, as neither a WCW or ECW superstar was one of the last two combatants). The Rock scored a victory for the WWF after Angle turned on Austin and the Alliance. Also on this card, the WWF consolidated some of the redundant titles, combining the United States Championship with the Intercontinental title (although the US title would later return as a WWE title, exclusive to the SmackDown! brand) and unifying WCW's tag team belts with the WWF's own.

Originally, the Alliance was to be an nWo style group, that would gradually take control of the WWF and then split into separate brands. However the failure of the Alliance to generate fan interest led to its early downfall, and the following year RAW and SmackDown! were split into separate brands.





If this actually happened, imagine what WWE would be like today. It would be very interesting.

Fan interest was actually quite high, McMahon just stumbled with the first few weeks and he never got the story going.

He gave up much too easily. And considering that only a year later he split the brands anyway, he should have just kept going. Brand seperation would make more sense, even now, with RAW being WWE, Smackdown! being WCW, and WWECW being ECW.