Not sure what the story is, but of late I’ve been getting a ton of questions about the infamous InVasion storyline that took place after the WWF bought WCW in 2001. All I can think is that even now, nearly a quarter century later (!!!), people are still ticked about how badly Vince and his cronies screwed the pooch on what was a can’t miss angle that could have been milked out to last years and years. Instead, it was a one-sided butt whipping that was seemingly over in the bat of an eye. And at the big event that capped it all off, we got ridiculous matches like Tajiri vs. Tazz and Earl Hebner against Nick Patrick.
No doubt you are asking, “Wait, I thought those guys were referees…what on earth are they doing in a match against each other? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today! What a coincidence!
You’d expect the guys and gals from WCW to show up on Raw and Smackdown, but it wasn’t just wrestlers, no no no. Instead, we got rival OFFICIATING CREWS. Here we see WCW Senior Referee Nick Patrick nearly coming to blows with WWF Senior Official Earl Hebner.
Why one was an “referee” and the other an “official” is honestly anyone’s guess, but if I had to put money on it I’m thinking it was just another one of Vince’s weird fetishes. Wait, that was probably a poor choice of words. Unfortunate that is.
Anyway, Patrick was from WCW and naturally the heel in the scenario. He’d fake injuries to give the WCW guys an unfair advantage., sometimes counting slow when they were losing and fast when they were on top. And believe it or not, he would actually count FAST, unlike his most famous moment when he was supposed to do that in the infamous Sting-Hulk Hogan match at Starrcade ’97. Still amazing to me that company spent a YEAR building up the biggest match they ever had and totally botched nearly everything about it.
And by “amazing”, I do of course mean “completely predictable.”
It didn’t take long for Patrick and Earl to come to blows in the ring. Well great. I guess we’ll never know who would have won that arm wrestling contest between Torrie Wilson and Trish Stratus now! How will I sleep tonight?
All this tomfoolery led to our match, but the company knew it needed someone unbiased to officiate the encounter. Thus they turned to Mick Foley. I should probably note that when Mick won his first WWF world title, the WCW announce crew spoiled the result live on Nitro. Of course that led to over a half million people immediately switching from Nitro over to Raw to watch it happen. So maybe he actually WOULD favor Nick Patrick and his WCW cronies here. That would only make sense, right?
Nick comes down to the ring looking surly as Charles Robinson politely bows toward him. No idea who the other two geeks here were. That’s not a shock at all considering Vince famously never wanted officials (or referees!) to be known by name.
Now wait a cotton picking minute here! In the main graphic for the match, it clearly notes that Patrick is the Senior Referee and Earl is the Senior Official. But HERE it says that Earl is a senior REFEREE!
Agreed!
The match starts and Nick takes immediate control, slapping Earl so hard that he goes all spaghetti legged! You’d think all those years of taking ref bumps would have sturdied up his jaw!
Earl comes back however and honestly, this is nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. Seriously, look at the height on Nick’s flat back bump! That’s admittedly kinda impressive.
They probably should have taken it home right there, but instead we get some of the worst punches you’ll ever see. I bet even Shane McMahon was shaking his head in the back at those blows.
Then again on second thought…
I mean, those aren’t the best looking blows I’ve ever seen but at least Earl is putting some umph behind them. And when you consider the first time I ever saw him in a match it looked like this…
…that is some serious advancement. (Y’all have no idea how long I’ve been looking for an excuse to put this GIF in ANY induction at WrestleCrap.)
Back to our match currently in progress, Nick goes low and punches Earl right in the Hebners. This enables Patrick to get the advantage and he follows this up with an honest-to-goodness…
…Rob Van Dam baseball slide dropkick! How on earth did RVD break his ankle doing that spot and NICK PATRICK of all people did it safely?
With Hebner on the outside, the WCW crew began to attack and Foley was having no part of that. He quite literally tosses the evil refs to the back to the delight of the fans. And say what you want about how badly the WWF screwed all this up, but the fans were NUCLEAR hot for everything here, even in this idiotic match. Patrick begins to jaw jack with Mick Foley which is a crucial mistake, as it allows Earl to slide back into the ring and hit Nick with what is, unquestionably…
THE WORLD’S WORST SPEAR!
Seriously, every once in a while people want to debate what was the worst offensive moves they’ve ever seen in a match, and that one is way up there. Despite that, it enables Earl to pick up the win as WCW is foiled yet again.
Nick rightly objects about the speed of Mick’s count and yeah, you know how that ends. In so many ways, that last bit was the embodiment of the entire InVasion: with Vince’s ‘foe’ flat on his back and humiliated. And it could have…make that, SHOULD have…been so much more.