As the year drew to a close in 2001, the dreadful invasion angle was
put out to pasture completely at Survivor Series 2001, as a WWF-lead team
captained by the Rock defeated an Alliance-led team captained by Steve
Austin. In typical fashion, it featured
almost no one from the original WCW side on the WCW team. Rob Van Dam in fact was better associated
with ECW than WCW, and it was fairly surprising that he was even allowed into
the main event scene again, as his rapid rise to popularity rivaling the top
stars’ was ruffling more than a few feathers on top and causing the usual
suspects to freak out. The process of
burying him began in earnest, with losses to Edge, and HHH began a smear
campaign against him decrying the evils of his kicks, as did Steve Austin (who
defended the WWF title against both Angle & RVD at the No Mercy PPV in
October 2001). The end result was a guy
stuck in the doldrums of his career, quickly realizing the that the glass ceiling
was very real. Let’s take another look
at the match, shall we?