Stone Cold leads an appreciation night for himself after retaining the WWF Championship via DQ against Kurt Angle. This leads to MILKOMANIA RUNNING WILD. As JR was solo on commentary for this due to Heyman being the MC, he took the time to berry every Alliance member that spoke.
That segment still comes up as one of the most "memorable" moments of Raw to this day.
A 12 man tag of mid carders doing nothing (Big Show/APA/Spike/Billy Gunn/Scotty 2 Hotty vs Dudleys/O'Haire/Palumbo/Hugh Morrus/Tommy Dreamer) but finisher spam for 5 minutes that had bigger reactions than any main event WWE can do today. This is the last time any of the Alliance guys besides the Dudleys wrestle on Raw for the rest of the angle.
DDP gets his ass beaten by Undertaker yet again, and is then pinned by Sara Taker. This is basically the end for DDP. He has 4 televised matches through Survivor Series and end of the Invasion. Note: That's a full 3 months. DDP is the biggest star to come over from WCW. They buried him from the start and then didn't even use him for the last half of the angle. He came in by allowing his contract with Turner to be bought out at 50 cents (possibly less) on the dollar, then took a much lower contract than what he had with WCW because he really wanted to be involved. He was immediately turned heel and took on a creepy pervert stalker gimmick, despite the absurdity of him being obsessed with Sara Taker when he was married to Kimberly. Literally every week after he gets his ass kicked by Taker and most weeks, Taker's Wife, sometimes Kane as well. Then to end it all Taker beats his ass at Summerslam, then does it again the next night on Raw and has his wife pin him. After that he has 2 squash matches against Big Show (one on a UK only PPV, one in 29 secs on Smackdown), a match on Heat with Edge, and the battle royal at Survivor Series, all of which are in November, so he was completely absent for September and October, and essentially November as well. You might remember I mentioned Palumbo and O'Haire being pulled from main shows after a Taker squash. After this show, they're now also gone for the last 3 months of the angle. Kanyon gets another two weeks before he loses the US title and is only on the weekend shows for the last 3 months. Rhyno also is going to go down hurt and miss the last 2 months.
By the time they get to Survivor Series, the Alliance has: Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Christian, Shane and Stephanie McMahon, William Regal, Test, Debra, Ivory, Terri having jumped from WWF. Guys already on the WWF roster before the angle started: Dudley Boys, Raven , Rhyno, Justin Credible, Tazz, Paul Heyman. Guys who debuted with the angle: RVD, Tommy Dreamer, Booker T, DDP, Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, Kidman, Kanyon, Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Hugh Morrus, Shawn Stasiak, Shane Helms, Buff Bagwell, Chavo Guerrero Jr. At some point both members of Kronik came in for I think two matches, and Steven Richards was their manager but they quit/fired right after a garbage match with Taker/Kane.
Holy shit. It's almost depressing reading this.
So, by the time the angle ended, these were the people who came in from ECW/WCW for the angle and were not already WWF talent who were still wrestling on Raw/SD: Booker T, RVD, Lance Storm, and oddly enough The Hurricane. That's it. Kidman vanished after the first few weeks and didn't come back until the last month or so, but only once or twice on main shows. Chavo popped up late into the angle but only on SD once I think. The rest of Alliance matches on TV were from guys who had been in WWE 3 months to 2 1/2 years before the angle started or were WWF guys before ECW/WCW even went out of business.
I remember naively thinking that this angle was going to be absolutely amazing when it was happening- started off really strong despite the obvious shit-seeds that I just didn't pay attention to at the time, I.E. Vince going onto the last Nitro and then who kayfabe buys it? SHANE. OK, could have still been fine. But then ECW INVADES AND OH MAN HERE WE GO HYPE HYPE HEYMAN IS THE LEADER OH SHIIIIIII-- lol j/k it's
Stephanie McMahon. And it was all downhill from there. Quickly turned into just WWE guys facing each other and bye-bye WCW and ECW names, now it's "The Alliance" and this storyline is all about Vince vs. his kids. Again. I also remember how cringe and awful a segment was of Stephanie telling an ailing Freddie Blassey that he was going to be dying soon or something like that.
If they had just waited longer, they could have had Hogan, Hall, Nash, Bischoff, and Flair among others. Maybe Goldberg? Can't remember if he didn't come in until 2003(?) because of his WCW contract. But I don't get why they didn't just play the waiting game here. They could have still used all the talent they acquired and just had various guys do sudden heel turns to form The Alliance and beat the shit out of anyone WWE. Oh well. Vince gonna Vince.
