One thing that really prevented the invasion storyline from hitting the heights that it should have was the guaranteed Time Warner contracts many big WCW names were under when the company was purchased. They could either take a risk and have their contracts bought out so they could be involved in the invasion, which is what DDP and Booker T did, or they could sit at home, rest up, and earn a boatload of money for doing absolutely nothing. As you can imagine, most of them sat at home, with Jeff Jarrett even calling the summer of 2001 “The Summer of No Worries.”

However, by the end of 2001 and the start of 2002, a number of those contracts would have expired, and for those that hadn’t, seeing WWE willingly change their entire product to fit the narrative that WCW and ECW had gotten one over on them would have been very enticing. Sting famously noted that he wanted no part of the invasion based on a segment where The Rock buried Booker T on “WWE SmackDown,” and thought if they could do that to Booker, what would they do to him? Having WCW and ECW get the victory at Survivor Series could have been the thing that sealed the deal for Sting to join WWE at the time, and he wouldn’t be the only one.

In reality, the original version of the New World Order, comprising Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash, joined WWE in February 2002, but in a world where The Alliance won the war, the nWo would have most likely made an appearance much earlier and played a major part in the storyline. The likes of Eric Bischoff, Rey Mysterio, and Scott Steiner all ended up in WWE by the end of 2002, but they could have easily popped up after Survivor Series if the lay of the land looked appealing to them.

Stars like Goldberg were a bit more complicated, as his Time Warner contract ran a little longer, meaning that he could have still said no to joining the invasion even if The Alliance were on top, but the idea of making even more money being part of the biggest storyline ever would have probably been too great to turn down. As for the ECW alumni, they weren’t really a priority in the grand scheme of things, and fans would have been more inclined to tune in for the nWo than the bWo, but guys like Sabu, The Sandman, and Steve Corino could have gotten healthy paydays with an Alliance victory.